How Forward-Looking Are Local Governments? Evidence from Indonesia

Conventional wisdom in the policy community holds that volatile fiscal transfers to local governments will cause volatile local spending, due to policy myopia. I test the degree to which local governments are forward-looking by exploiting unusual variation in intergovernmental grants in Indonesia. A national reform permanently increased the general grant, and the increase was larger for less densely populated districts. Hydrocarbon-rich districts experienced transitory shocks to shared resource revenue. Districts responded to the permanent revenue shock by increasing investment in lumpy public goods. By contrast, districts smoothed their expenditure responses to the transitory revenue shocks, opting not to adjust lumpy public goods. The results suggest that local governments respond to changes in permanent public income over a time horizon of three to five years. I discuss implications for countercyclical fiscal policy and research on taxation and accountability

The Long-Run Effects of Oil Wealth on Development: Evidence from Petroleum Geology

We estimate the long-run effects of oil wealth on development by exploiting spatial variation in sedimentary basins—areas where petroleum can potentially form. Instrumental variables estimates indicate that oil production impedes democracy and fiscal capacity development, increases corruption, and raises GDP per capita without significantly harming the non-resource sectors of the economy. We find no evidence that oil production increases internal armed conflict, coup attempts, or political purges. In several specifications failure to account for endogeneity leads to substantial underestimation of the adverse effects of oil, suggesting that countries with higher-quality political institutions and greater fiscal capacity disproportionately select into oil production

How Forward-Looking Are Local Governments? Evidence from Indonesia

Conventional wisdom in the policy community holds that volatile fiscal transfers to local governments will cause volatile local spending, due to policy myopia. I test the degree to which local governments are forward-looking by exploiting unusual variation in intergovernmental grants in Indonesia. A national reform permanently increased the general grant, and the increase was larger for less densely populated districts. Hydrocarbon-rich districts experienced transitory shocks to shared resource revenue. Districts responded to the permanent revenue shock by increasing investment in lumpy public goods. By contrast, districts smoothed their expenditure responses to the transitory revenue shocks, opting not to adjust lumpy public goods. The results suggest that local governments respond to changes in permanent public income over a time horizon of three to five years. I discuss implications for countercyclical fiscal policy and research on taxation and accountability

Revenue Persistence and Public Service Delivery

I exploit unusual policy variation in Indonesia to examine how local responses to intergovernmental grants depend on their persistence. A national reform generated permanent increases in the general grant that were larger for less densely populated districts, while hydrocarbon-rich districts experienced transitory shocks to shared resource revenue. Public service delivery strongly responded to the permanent shock, but not to the transitory shocks, consistent with districts providing lumpy public services as a function of lifetime fiscal resources. The timing and composition of expenditure responses are consistent with this mechanism. I discuss implications for decentralization policy and research on taxation and accountability

Do Intergovernmental Grants Improve Public Service Delivery in Developing Countries?

I exploit unusual policy variation in Indonesia to examine how local responses to intergovernmental grants depend on their persistence. A national reform produced permanent increases in the general grant that were larger for less densely populated districts. Hydrocarbon-rich districts experienced transitory shocks to shared resource revenue. Public service delivery strongly responded to the permanent shock, but not to the transitory shocks, consistent with districts providing lumpy public services as a function of lifetime fiscal resources. I provide supporting evidence for this mechanism and rule out other potential mechanisms. I discuss implications for decentralization policy and research on taxation and accountability

Do Intergovernmental Grants Improve Public Service Delivery in Developing Countries?

I exploit unusual policy variation in Indonesia to examine how local responses to intergovernmental grants depend on their persistence. A national reform produced permanent increases in the general grant that were larger for less densely populated districts. Hydrocarbon-rich districts experienced transitory shocks to shared resource revenue. Public service delivery strongly responded to the permanent shock, but not to the transitory shocks, consistent with districts providing lumpy public services as a function of lifetime fiscal resources. I provide supporting evidence for this mechanism and rule out other potential mechanisms. I discuss implications for decentralization policy and research on taxation and accountability

The Economic Legacy of Warfare: Evidence from European Regions

Historical warfare in Europe inflicted numerous costs on rural populations. To reduce such costs, rural populations relocated behind the relative safety of urban fortifications. We argue that war-related urbanization had positive consequences for long-run regional economic development. We geocode the locations of more than 600 conflicts in early modern Europe. We find a positive and significant relationship between historical conflict exposure and regional economic development today. Our results are robust to a wide range of econometric techniques, alternative samples, and economic outcomes. Human capital accumulation stands out as one channel through which war-related urbanization translated into regional economic development. Our results highlight the military origins of Europe’s wealthy urban bel

Government Fragmentation and Economic Growth

How does the fragmentation of local governments affect economic activity? We examine this question in the context of a major period of decentralization in Indonesia in which the number of local governments increased by 50 percent within a decade. Exploiting idiosyncratic variation in the timing of district splits, we find that fragmentation reduces district GDP in the short run---despite large increases in central transfers. The downsides of fragmentation due to economies of scale and the inexperience of new government personnel outweigh the potential upsides of increased accountability and competition. The GDP decline is larger in ``child'' districts that acquire a new capital and government. Furthermore, splitting districts spend more on administration and show no improvement in the areas of public good provision, red tape, and corruption