Person:
Kaiser, Kai
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Public finance
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Last updated
January 31, 2023
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Publication
Implementing Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys for Results : Lessons from a Decade of Global Experience
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-11)Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys (PETS) can serve as a powerful tool to inform prevailing public financial management (PFM) practices and the extent to which government budgets link to execution and desired service delivery objectives and beneficiaries. Since the first PETS in Uganda in 1996, tracking exercises have now been conducted in over two dozen other countries, often as part of core analytical and advisory work related to PFM. This note synthesizes the findings and lessons from a number of recent PETS stocktaking exercises and indicates their potential benefits for enriching PFM and sectoral policy dialogues in a variety of country settings. Key findings include: (i) PETS have proven to be useful as part of a broader policy strategy aimed at improving service delivery results; (ii) PETS has become a brand name for very different instruments, but at its core there is a survey methodology that requires skilled technical expertise and a solid knowledge of budget execution processes; (iii) policy impact in a variety of PETS experiences could be further strengthened by stronger country ownership and effective follow-up; and (iv) the Bank could enhance PETS results through strategic partnering, and greater emphasis on dissemination and communication strategies aimed at involving actors who can foster actions on the ground. -
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Understanding Variations in Local Conflict: Evidence and Implications from Indonesia
( 2009)Recent studies of large-scale "headline" conflicts have excluded consideration of local conflict, in large part due to the absence of representative data at low levels of geographic specification. This paper is a first attempt to correct for that by assessing the incidence, impacts, and patterns of local conflict in Indonesia. We employ a combination of qualitative fieldwork with an exploratory statistical analysis of the 2003 Village Potential Statistics collected by the Bureau of Statistics (Potensi Desa-PODES), which maps conflict across all of Indonesia's villages/neighborhoods. Violent conflict can be observed throughout the archipelago. The qualitative analysis shows that local conflicts vary in form and impacts across districts, and that local factors are key. The quantitative analysis, which excludes high conflict areas of Indonesia, confirms the importance of economic factors, with positive correlations between violent conflict and poverty, inequality, and variables measuring economic development. Clustering of ethnic groups and ill-defined property rights were also positively associated with violence. -
Publication
Problem-Driven Governance and Political Economy Analysis : Good Practice Framework
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-09)Politics and the political economy matter for whether and how reforms happen in developing as well as in developed countries. The World Bank as an institution and its individual country and task teams has been grappling with this issue for many years. The good practice framework described here is an attempt to summarize relevant analytic tools and approaches, to indicate how it can be used (more) systematically, and to make key lessons readily available. It also seeks to set out how such tools can be used in a way that is problem driven, that is, focused on specific issues and challenges rather than on developing broad overviews, in order to generate operationally relevant findings and implications. Integrating governance and political economy (GPE) analysis more systematically into Bank operational work is important to enhance development effectiveness, to better address risks, and to respond to client demands for approaches that are tailored to specific situations. The objective of this framework is to systematize approaches to GPE analysis and to provide orientation for teams that are considering undertaking it. The framework especially draws on the experience with a number of pilot studies undertaken in FY2008 and FY2009, as well as on earlier studies. Analysis focused on a variety of sectors- electricity, transport, and telecommunications, water, and public sector reforms and on thematic challenges, especially the management of natural resource wealth. The framework is therefore tailored to the context of Bank operations and strategy development (such as country assistance strategies) designed to show how GPE analysis can be used to inform and shape them to support more effective development. The framework is divided into six parts: part one discusses the overall rationale of this framework and sets out the key foundations. Part two discusses how PGPE analysis can be used to inform and shape Bank strategies and operations, and offers options for translating the analysis into action more broadly. Part three sets out the various levels of analysis that may be undertaken, from an overall country focus, to a sector or thematic focus, to a GPE analysis that is undertaken to inform specific projects or policy decisions. Part four addresses the issue of evidencing a GPE analysis, a key challenge in producing high-quality work. Part five addresses process issues that arise when undertaking GPE-type analysis. Finally, part six gives conclusion and looking forward. -
Publication
Evaluating Fiscal Equalization in Indonesia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-05)This paper presents a methodology to evaluate fiscal decentralization focusing on the potential mis-targeting of intergovernmental fiscal equalization transfers. The approach builds on an explicit comparison and the summary measurement of different (horizontal) allocation distributions across states or localities. Whereas formula-based fiscal transfers have the merit of being transparent and promoting revenue predictability in fiscal decentralization, in practice, two challenges emerge: (1) What are the appropriate formula designs given the sub-national data constraints evident in most decentralizing developing countries? and (2) How costly in terms of mis-targeting to the presumed expenditure needs and fiscal capacity are deviations from these types of benchmark formulas (for example, due to historical factors or the need to meet establishment costs such as civil service wages)? The authors illustrate this approach by assessing Indonesia's evolving intergovernmental fiscal system instituted in the 2001 Big Bang decentralization. The discussion comes against Indonesia's recent policy decision to fully fund sub-national civil servant wages as part of the base general allocation grant (DAU) transfers, raising questions about both incentive effects for local governments and potential mis-targeting. The authors identify potential efficiency losses from the DAU's horizontal misallocation from half a dozen alternative scenarios found in the policy dialogue, ranging from 9 to 30 percent-on the order of US$ 3.9 billion-of the overall annual size of this large intergovernmental transfer. The scale of these tradeoffs highlights the importance of intergovernmental transfers in more general debates in public finance for decentralized countries. -
Publication
Agglomeration, Transport, and Regional Development in Indonesia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-01)How effective are public interventions in addressing significant regional disparities in formal manufacturing concentration in a developing economy? The authors examine the aggregate and sectoral geographic concentration of manufacturing industries for Indonesia, and estimate the impact of factors influencing location choice at the firm level. They distinguish between natural advantage, including infrastructure endowments, wage rates, and natural resource endowments, and production externalities, arising from the co-location of firms in the same or complementary industries. The methodology pays special attention to empirically distinguishing the impact of measured production externalities from unobserved local characteristics. Depending on the sector, the authors find that a mix of both forms of regional advantage explains the geographic distribution of firms. Based on the estimated location choice model, they illustrate the potential impacts of policy interventions on manufacturing distribution by simulating the effectiveness of transport improvements on relocation of firms. Their findings suggest that improvements in transport infrastructure may only have limited effects in attracting industry to secondary industrial centers outside of Java, especially in sectors already established in leading regions. The findings underscore the challenges for addressing the industrial fortunes of lagging regions, either through local decentralized policy interventions or national policies focused on infrastructure development. -
Publication
Managing Post-Disaster Reconstruction Finance : International Experience in Public Financial Management
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-01)In recent years, natural and man-made disasters have confronted the international community with its most demanding reconstruction challenges since the aftermath of World War II. Managing the inflow of resources and spending those resources well have proven to be two of the main difficulties in such reconstruction projects, particularly after large-scale disasters. A central dilemma of the public financial management of reconstruction is the need for very high levels of accountability to demonstrate fiduciary credibility, while at the same time ensuring the rapid implementation of recovery programs. This paper identifies options and lessons for managing post-disaster reconstruction finance in three key areas: (i) the establishment of special institutions to manage the reconstruction process; (ii) the selection of public financial management systems with respect to the application of country systems, special fiduciary arrangements, or donor/NGO execution; and (iii) monitoring and evaluation systems. The authors synthesize the phasing of assistance and approaches in eight recent post-natural disaster reconstruction efforts (Aceh-Indonesia, Yogyakarta-Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Pakistan, Colombia, Grenada, and Honduras) to help guide the priorities and options for future instances of public financial management for disaster reconstruction. The paper also compares the challenges posed by post-conflict versus post-natural disaster public financial management.