IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fre/wpaper/38.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Subnational Favoritism in Development Grant Allocations – Empirical Evidence from Decentralized Indonesia

Author

Listed:
  • Gerrit J. Gonschorek

    (Department of International Economic Policy, University of Freiburg)

Abstract

Are public grant allocations biased toward the birth districts of governors, and if so, what explains this favoritism? The allocation of budget authority to local government officials is a common trend around the developing world but is often criticized for transferring favoritism from the center to lower government levels. To limit the risk of such grant manipulations in fiscally decentralized countries, it is crucial to analyze the influence of such informal ties at the subnational level. Using a unique panel data set of 410 Indonesian districts for the period 2005– 2013, I exploit the discretionary nature of a government grant and a large amount of asynchronous local direct elections to investigate if the origin of the provincial governor determines fund allocations to the district level. I show that birth districts of incumbent governors receive significantly larger shares of discretionary grants compared with the other districts within a province. Local favoritism is driven by governors with a political history in the mayor’s office of their birth district and limited by local electoral accountability. Classical porkbarrel politics, however, as reelection motives or formal political party ties to the district administration, do not explain local favoritism. The allocations of formula-based transfers, which limit the discretionary power of a governor, are not affected by local favoritism. These results illustrate the importance of non-discretionary institutional grant design and local democratization reforms in the context of Indonesia’s political system. The country is a young democracy characterized by low ideological cleavages, little party loyalty, and the prevalence of money politics in its highly decentralized fiscal system. These features are not unique to Indonesia and characterize a number of developing countries; however, and they are in sharp contrast to established democracies for which subnational favoritism has been analyzed.

Suggested Citation

  • Gerrit J. Gonschorek, 2020. "Subnational Favoritism in Development Grant Allocations – Empirical Evidence from Decentralized Indonesia," Discussion Paper Series 38, Department of International Economic Policy, University of Freiburg, revised Feb 2020.
    • Handle: RePEc:fre:wpaper:38
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.iep.uni-freiburg.de/discussion-papers/repec/fre/wpaper/files/dp_38_subnational_favoritism.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sjahrir, Bambang Suharnoko & Kis-Katos, Krisztina & Schulze, Günther G., 2014. "Administrative Overspending in Indonesian Districts: The Role of Local Politics," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 166-183.
    2. Kai Gehring & Stephan A. Schneider, 2018. "Towards the Greater Good? EU Commissioners' Nationality and Budget Allocation in the European Union," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 214-239, February.
    3. Bracco, Emanuele & Lockwood, Ben & Porcelli, Francesco & Redoano, Michela, 2015. "Intergovernmental grants as signals and the alignment effect: Theory and evidence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 78-91.
    4. Mariano Tommasi & Federico Weinschelbaum, 2007. "Centralization vs. Decentralization: A Principal‐Agent Analysis," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 9(2), pages 369-389, April.
    5. Charles M. Tiebout, 1956. "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(5), pages 416-416.
    6. Muraközy, Balázs & Telegdy, Álmos, 2016. "Political incentives and state subsidy allocation: Evidence from Hungarian municipalities," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 324-344.
    7. Besley, Timothy & Case, Anne, 1995. "Incumbent Behavior: Vote-Seeking, Tax-Setting, and Yardstick Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 25-45, March.
    8. Grossman, Philip J, 1994. "A Political Theory of Intergovernmental Grants," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 78(3-4), pages 295-303, March.
    9. Brollo, Fernanda & Nannicini, Tommaso, 2012. "Tying Your Enemy's Hands in Close Races: The Politics of Federal Transfers in Brazil," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 106(4), pages 742-761, November.
    10. Banful, Afua Branoah, 2011. "Do formula-based intergovernmental transfer mechanisms eliminate politically motivated targeting? Evidence from Ghana," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 380-390, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gonschorek, Gerrit J., 2021. "Subnational favoritism in development grant allocations: Empirical evidence from decentralized Indonesia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    2. Gonschorek, Gerrit J. & Schulze, Günther G. & Sjahrir, Bambang Suharnoko, 2018. "To the ones in need or the ones you need? The political economy of central discretionary grants − empirical evidence from Indonesia," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 240-260.
    3. Reingewertz, Yaniv, 2014. "Fiscal Decentralization - a Survey of the Empirical Literature," MPRA Paper 59889, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Fidel Perez-Sebastian & Ohad Raveh, 2016. "Federal Tax Policies, Congressional Voting, and the Fiscal Advantage of Natural Resources," OxCarre Working Papers 182, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    5. Kauder, Björn & Potrafke, Niklas & Reischmann, Markus, 2016. "Do politicians reward core supporters? Evidence from a discretionary grant program," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 39-56.
    6. Kauder, Björn & Björn, Kauder & Niklas, Potrafke & Markus, Reischmann, 2016. "Do politicians gratify core supporters? Evidence from a discretionary grant program," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145509, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    7. Quinckhardt, Matthias, 2023. "The value of a party: Local politics and the allocation of intergovernmental transfers," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    8. Luisa Schneider & Daniela Wech & Matthias Wrede, 2022. "Political alignment and project funding," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 29(6), pages 1561-1589, December.
    9. Gouvêa, Raphael & Girardi, Daniele, 2021. "Partisanship and local fiscal policy: Evidence from Brazilian cities," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    10. Momi Dahan & Itamar Yakir, 2022. "Revealed political favoritism: evidence from the allocation of state lottery grants in Israel," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 190(3), pages 387-406, March.
    11. Resce, Giuliano, 2022. "The impact of political and non-political officials on the financial management of local governments," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 44(5), pages 943-962.
    12. Kammas, Pantelis & Poulima, Maria & Sarantides, Vassilis, 2023. "Fueling the party machine: Evidence from Greece during Metapolitefsi," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    13. Christa N. Brunnschweiler & Samuel Kwabena Obeng, 2020. "Rewarding Allegiance: Political Alignment and Fiscal Outcomes in Local Government," University of East Anglia School of Economics Working Paper Series 2020-05, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    14. Grégoire ROTA-GRAZIOSI & Emilie CALDEIRA, 2014. "La décentralisation dans les pays en développement : une revue de la littérature - Decentralization in developing countries: A literature review," Working Papers 201411, CERDI.
    15. Markus Reischmann, 2016. "Empirical Studies on Public Debt and Fiscal Transfers," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 63.
    16. Savu, A., 2021. "Reverse Political Coattails under a Technocratic Government: New Evidence on the National Electoral Benefits of Local Party Incumbency," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2121, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    17. Resce, Giuliano, 2022. "Political and Non-Political Officials in Local Government," Economics & Statistics Discussion Papers esdp22079, University of Molise, Department of Economics.
    18. Stephan Schneider & Sven Kunze, 2021. "Disastrous Discretion: Ambiguous Decision Situations Foster Political Favoritism," KOF Working papers 21-491, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    19. Fidel Perez-Sebastian & Ohad Raveh, 2019. "Federal tax policies, congressional voting and natural resources," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 52(3), pages 1112-1164, August.
    20. Oana Borcan, 2016. "The illicit beneficts of local party alignment in national elections," University of East Anglia School of Economics Working Paper Series 2016-10, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fiscal Decentralization; Subnational Favoritism; Discretionary Grants; Local Elections; Indonesia;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N15 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Asia including Middle East
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General
    • P51 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems - - - Comparative Analysis of Economic Systems

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fre:wpaper:38. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Günther G. Schulze (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wffrede.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.