Kaiser, Kai

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Kaiser, Kai

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Public finance

Last updated January 31, 2023

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Implementing Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys for Results : Lessons from a Decade of Global Experience

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-11) Gurkan, Asli ; Kaiser, Kai ; Voorbraak, Doris

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.
Understanding Variations in Local Conflict: Evidence and Implications from Indonesia

( 2009) Barron, Patrick ; Kaiser, Kai ; Pradhan, Menno

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.
The “Resource Curse” in MENA? Political Transitions, Resource Wealth, Economic Shocks, and Conflict Risk

( 2011-07-01) Ross, Michael ; Kaiser, Kai ; Mazaheri, Nimah

The recent political upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa region have exposed growing concerns about conflict risk, political stability, and reform prospects across its societies. Given the prevalence of oil and gas resource endowments in the region, which a voluminous literature suggests can be associated with adverse development consequences, this paper examines the interplay between their associated rents and political economy trajectories. The contribution of the paper is threefold: first, to examine the quantitative evidence of violent conflict in the region since 1960; second, to provide a nuanced review of the regional case study literature on the relationship between resource endowments, political stability, and conflict risk; and third, to assess how prospective political transitions have implications for the World Bank Group's work in the region on public sector management and private sector development. The authors find that resources and regimes have intersected to provide stability and limited violent conflict in the region, but that these development patterns have yielded a set of policy choices and development patterns that are proving increasingly brittle and unsustainable. A major institutional challenge for reforms will be to consolidate a requisite degree of inter-temporal credibility and stability in these regimes, while expanding inclusiveness in state-society relations.
Local Conflict in Indonesia: Measuring Incidence and Identifying patterns

(World Bank, Washington, D.C., 2004-08) Barron, Patrick ; Kaiser, Kai ; Pradhan, Menno

The widespread presence of local conflict characterizes many developing countries such as Indonesia. Outbreaks of violent conflict not only have direct costs for lives, livelihoods, and material property, but may also have the potential to escalate further. Recent studies on large-scale "headline" conflicts have tended to exclude the systematic 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. We evaluate a unique dataset compiled by the Indonesian government, the periodic Village Potential Statistics (PODES), which seeks to map conflict across all of Indonesia's 69,000 villages/neighborhoods. The data confirm that conflict is prevalent beyond well publicized "conflict regions," and that it can be observed across the archipelago. The data report largely violent conflict in 7.1 percent of Indonesia's lowest administrative tier (rural desa and urban kelurahan). Integrating examples from qualitative fieldwork, we assess issues in the measurement of local conflict for quantitative analysis, and adopt an empirical framework to examine potential associations with poverty, inequality, shocks, ethnic and religious diversity/inequality, and community-level associational and security arrangements. The quantitative analysis shows positive correlations between local conflict and unemployment, inequality, natural disasters, changes in sources of incomes, and clustering of ethnic groups within villages. The institutional variables indicate that the presence of places of worship is associated with less conflict, while the presence of religious groups and traditional culture (adat) institutions are associated with conflict. We conclude by suggesting future areas of research, notably on the role of group inequality and inference, and suggest ways to improve the measurement of conflict in the village census.
Problem-Driven Governance and Political Economy Analysis : Good Practice Framework

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-09) Fritz, Verena ; Kaiser, Kai ; Levy, Brian

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.
The Power of Public Investment Management : Transforming Resources into Assets for Growth

(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-09-30) Rajaram, Anand ; Minh Le, Tuan ; Kaiser, Kai ; Kim, Jay-Hyung ; Frank, Jonas

This publication consists of seven chapters: building a system for public investment management; a unified framework for public investment management; country experiences of public investment management; approaches to better project appraisal; public investment management under uncertainty; procurement and public investment management; and public investment management for public-private partnerships.
Intergovernmental Fiscal Management in Natural Resource-Rich Settings

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014) Vinuela, Lorena ; Kaiser, Kai ; Chowdhurie-Aziz, Monali

In resource-dependent countries, natural resources constitute one of the main assets available for financing local governments because the economy is not greatly diversified. The goal of this note is to highlight different critical dimensions of intergovernmental fiscal relations in these settings, present a survey of the range of arrangements used for managing resource rents across multiple levels of government, and synthesize basic principles or considerations in the implementation of revenue-sharing systems across different contexts. The design and implementation of measures to improve intergovernmental management of the oil, gas, and mining sector must consider the core policy objectives, fiscal context, and overall political structure. Paying attention to the constraints and political economy drivers that shape intergovernmental relations is critical to identify the feasible reforms and alternatives to improve performance that are available in a given country.
Electoral Accountability and Local Government Spending in Indonesia

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-02) Skoufias, Emmanuel ; Narayan, Ambar ; Dasgupta, Basab ; Kaiser, Kai

This paper takes advantage of the exogenous phasing of direct elections in districts and applies the double-difference estimator to measure impacts on (i) human development outcomes and (ii) the pattern of public spending and revenue generation at the district level. The analysis reveals that four years after the switch to direct elections, there have been no significant effects on human development outcomes. However, the estimates of the impact of Pilkada on health expenditures at the district level suggest that directly elected district officials may have become more responsive to local needs at least in the area of health. The composition of district expenditures changes considerably during the year and sometimes the year before the elections, shifting toward expenditure categories that allow incumbent district heads running as candidates in the direct elections to "buy" voter support. Electoral reforms did not lead to higher revenue generation from own sources and had no effect on the budget surplus of districts with directly elected heads.
From Pork to Performance

(World Bank, Washington, DC and AidData, 2016-06) Custer, Samantha ; Rahemtulla, Hanif ; Kaiser, Kai-Alexander ; van den Brink, Rogier

From pork to performance illuminates the politics of how public resources are spent and the difficulty of the ‘last mile’ of service delivery. Crumbling facilities, absentee teachers, and roads to nowhere waste resources and retard development in many countries around the world. These failures in last mile service delivery underscore a more intractable development problem, a breakdown in accountability relationships, as politicians and civil servants act with impunity to extract private benefits at the expense of public goods. This study examines the extent to which technology and transparency can disrupt this low accountability status quo through turning information into collective action to improve government performance by strengthening the accountability relationships between politicians, service providers and citizens. In 2010, a new president came to power in the Philippines with a compelling message, ‘no corruption, no poverty’, and embraced open government as a vehicle to burn avenues of retreat and advance governance reforms. This study features examples from five sectors, education, reconstruction, roads, municipal development, and tax collection – where government champions sought to open up the black box of service delivery and use digital platforms to disclose data and strengthen accountability. This research provides guidance for public, private, and civil society leaders committed to using technology and transparency to curb pork-barrel politics and create digital dividends for their communities. The study combines rigorous political economy analysis with practical diagnostic tools and recommendations for open government initiatives to go deeper in the Philippines and around the world.
The Political Economy of Decentralization Reforms : Implications for Aid Effectiveness

(World Bank, 2011-06-24) Eaton, Kent ; Kaiser, Kai ; Smoke, Paul J.

This volume presents a preliminary framework designed to help international development partners consider the relevance of political economy issues for their programmatic support to decentralization and local government reform. The intention is neither to advocate decentralization in general or in any particular form, nor to presume or privilege any particular decentralization objective. Instead, the purpose is to document the potential value of better understanding how (primarily national and intergovernmental) political and institutional dynamics do or could affect the scope for realizing decentralization reforms aligned with commonly advocated service delivery, governance, and poverty reduction goals. The underlying premise is that systematic analysis of these issues can productively complement the dominantly technical diagnostic work typically carried out by development partners. Specifically, development partners can benefit from better understanding the practical significance of motives that drive politicians and bureaucrats to support or oppose reform at various stages of the decentralization process, from making an initial reform decision to detailed design and implementation. In addition, the framework addresses how these incentives can weaken, strengthen, or shift in response to changes in political and economic conditions that arise after reform begins. A general approach to conducting political economy of decentralization analysis is outlined, recognizing the need to tailor such analysis to the particular country context. This volume is based on literature reviews and knowledge derived from selected country experiences.