Borrowing can be an efficient way for sub-national governments to acquire capital assets, but it also carries risks of fiscal distress and insolvency for borrowers. To minimise these risks, many governments around the world have developed ex-post insolvency remedies, including, most importantly,...

The central government spends just under one-half of its development budget outside Jakarta. The centre provides more than one-third of total development spending carried out in the regions. Central development spending in the regions on primary and secondary sector activities and on education...

Local governments in Indonesia administer taxes inefficiently. The average cost of local tax administration as a percentage of revenue generated is estimated to be over 50%. There is, however, a wide variation in administrative inefficiency across local governments. The estimation of a...

This paper examines the intergovernmental general purpose equalisation transfer (DAU) that began operating in 2001. First, a description of the mechanism highlights the significant distributional role played by the 'balancing factor' relative to the 'formula', and the key differences in...

On-lending to sub-national governments in Indonesia has a long and generally disappointing history. Among other noteworthy problems, an insufficient amount of funds has been channelled through the system vis-a-vis capital fi nancing needs, and loan repayments have proved poor. Aid agencies and...

Under fiscal decentralisation, regional governments have been given the authority to create new taxes and charges. Many observers have criticised the regions for being too aggressive in establishing new revenue instruments, and the central government for allowing too many of them to stand....

The government of Indonesia has now piloted two different output-based performance grants to regions. One focuses on increasing the amount and quality of local government capital spending. The other provides incentives for local governments to augment equity investments in their water...