Intergovernmental Transfers Reduction Policy and Flypaper Effect: Case of Covid-19 Pandemic in Indonesia

This study empirically examines the influence of intergovernmental transfers and the fall of it to local government’s expenditure in Indonesia as well as the possibility of flypaper effect occurrence over pandemic. Over the years, in general, intergovernmental transfers in Indonesia was increasing since decentralization was applied in 2000 till the pandemic hit the country which made the regulator for the first time in 20 years decided to cut overall transfers for municipalities in order to recover economically. A set of cross-section data used in this study is the year 2020 from 34 provinces, 417 regencies, dan 91 cities. The result of pooled OLS regression model shows that flypaper effect does appear for all types of expenditures, such as total expenditure, capital expenditure, and operational expenditure of the local government. Asymmetric response of those three are quite varied. Total expenditure shows asymmetry whereas capital and operational expenditures find the opposite.

Fiscal Decentralization and its Effect on Poverty Alleviation: Case Study of Indonesia

This research provides empirical evidence of the effect of fiscal decentralization on poverty alleviation and used data from 505 districts/cities in Indonesia from 2010 to 2019. The poverty rate is used as an indicator to measure the social condition of the area with the parameter of the percentage of the total population below the poverty line, while the fiscal decentralization indicator uses approach to the size of the ratio of PAD to total regional income and expenditure. The estimated results used the fixed effect model shows that fiscal decentralization have significant role to reduce the level of poverty in districts/cities nationally. From this estimation result, the recommended policy formulation is pro-poor fiscal decentralization through strengthening regional financial capacity, both optimizing Original Local Government Revenue (PAD), allocating Transfer Funds to Regions that are specific grants, improving the quality of spending and regional financial management, as well as mechanisms monitoring - better evaluation. In addition, the effectiveness and efficiency of regional government policies in dealing with socio-economic issues such as unemployment and growth population must also be considered

Crystallization and preliminary X-ray crystallographic analysis of a thermostable organic solvent-tolerant lipase from Bacillus sp. strain 42

An organic solvent-tolerant lipase from Bacillus sp. strain 42 was crystallized using the capillary-tube method. The purpose of studying this enzyme was in order to better understand its folding and to characterize its properties in organic solvents. By initially solving its structure in the native state, further studies on protein-solvent interactions could be performed. X-ray data were collected at 2.0 Å resolution using an in-house diffractometer. The estimated crystal dimensions were 0.09 0.19 0.08 mm. The crystal belonged to the monoclinic space group C2, with unit-cell parameters a = 117.41, b = 80.85, c = 99.44 Å, β = 96.40°

On the taxonomy of chigger mites (Acariformes: Trombiculidae) parasitizing birds in Thailand and Malaysia, with the description of a new species

Chigger mites were collected from 65 bird species in different regions of Thailand and Malaysia. In total, 21 species were recorded. The previously unknown fauna of chiggers parasitizing shorebirds of Thailand included one new species, Neacariscus (Whartonacarus) andamanensis n. sp. as well as Neacariscus (Neacariscus) pluvius (Wharton, 1945) previously recorded only in Oceania; Neacariscus (Whartonacarus) shiraii (Sasa, Kano and Obata, 1952) (known from Oceania and Japan); and Neacariscus (Whartonacarus) sulae (Oudemans, 1910) and Schoengastia archaea (Taufflieb, 1960), both described from West Africa. Toritrombicula kirhocephales Goff, 1982 described from Papua New Guinea was for the first time recorded in Asia (Thailand). Neoschoengastia gallinarum (Hatori, 1920) and Helenicula comata (Womersley, 1952) were for the first time recorded in Thailand. Ascoschoengastia lorius (Gunther, 1939) was for the first time recorded in Malaysia. Finally, Ericotrombidium cosmetopode (Vercammen-Grandjean and Langston, 1971) described from free larvae, was for the first time recorded on a host (bird Pellorneum ruficeps Swainson); and Leptotrombidium miculum (Traub and Audy, 1954) was for the first time recorded on a bird host. New host species were recorded for a large part of the collected chigger species.</jats:p

Effect of biochar and chicken manure on growth performance and phytochemicals of Orthosiphon stamineus (Misai kucing)

The effective of biochar and chicken manure on the growth performance and phytochemicals of misai kucing (Orthosiphon stamineus) were studied. Misai kucing was planted in a glasshouse at Ladang 2, Universiti Putra Malaysia. In this experiment, there were 9 treatments combinations and 4 replications, from three biochar rates (0, 5 and 10 ton/ha) and three chicken manure rates (0, 2.5 and 5 ton/ha) are arranged in a randomized complete block design. The plants were harvested 10 weeks after transplanting. The parameters measured were plant height, days to flowering, chlorophyll content, fresh and dry weights and phytochemical contents (total phenolic and total flavonoid contents and antioxidant activity). The phytochemical contents were extracted from whole plant by using methanol extraction of dry sample O. Stamineus. The Folin-Ciocalteu method was used for phenolic contents determination, aluminum chloride colorimetric method for determination of flavonoid contents and 2,2-diphenylpicrylhydrazyl method for determination of antioxidant activity. Biochar had no significant effect on plant height, days to flowering and fresh weight among the rates of biochar application. Chicken manure significantly affected plant height, days to flowering, chlorophyll content, fresh weight and dry weight. The biochar affected the phenolic contents, but was not significantly affected by the chicken manure rates applied. Total flavonoid contents did not show significance in the presence of biochar and chicken manure. The antioxidant activity was significantly affected by the rates of biochar and chicken manure used as soil amendments. However, it is recommended that further research should be done to investigate the long-term effects of the combination of biochar and chicken manure as a soil amendment on the growth performance and quality of O. stamineus

Measuring the inequality in education: educational Kuznets curve

This study aims to measure the inequality of education. The study examines the pattern in the educational Lorenz curve as a way to investigate the impact of education experience, per capita income, and poverty on educational inequality. Using Banten Province secondary data series over 1996 –2016, the unbalanced panel unit root were tested for the educational Kuznets curve. The regression results shows that the educational Kuznets curve does not exist. While we found that the educational experience reduce the educational inequality, the per capita income and poverty were not significant

The Effects of Socio-Economic Factors on Health of Elderly in East Java

The study examines the effect of the socio-economic factors on the health status of elderly in East Java using the Indonesian Socio-Economic Survey (SUSENAS) of 2016. The socio-economic factors consist of sex, education, working activity, relationship status with the head of household, living arrangement, economic status, and location of residence. This study uses the ordered probit analysis accommodating three ordered potential health status of elderly, including (1) elderly without health problems, (2) elderly with health problems but not severe, and (3) elderly with severe health problems. The result of the study suggests that the health of the elderly is influenced significantly by some socioeconomic factors including education, working activity, relationship status with head of household, living arrangement, and economic factors