School autonomy and parental participation both influence learning. Autonomy raises the rent available at the school and participation determines whether student learning will benefit from that rent. It is therefore important who is empowered through decentralization

Indonesia has long been characterized as having a "low-pay civil service" which is in turn used to explain corruption at various levels of government. Analysis of individual and household level data show that the earnings of government employees, on average, is comparable to what they might earn...