Organizer: Indonesia Project, Australia National University

Type/Location: Hybrid / Canberra, Australia

Description:

Join the Indonesia Project at Australian National University for a talk by Masyhur Hilmy, Lecturer at the School of Economics, University of New South Wales–Sidney. Professor Hilmy will discuss how leadership changes affect local bureaucratic performance in Indonesia.

Abstract:

In many countries, local governments struggle with inefficiency and corruption, often perpetuated by entrenched elites. This paper examines how leadership changes affect local bureaucratic performance. Combining personnel and citizen surveys with a regression discontinuity design in a large sample of Indonesian villages, we show that electoral turnover revitalizes local bureaucracies and improves the flow of information about citizen preferences. Bureaucrats serving new leaders interact more with citizens and are less connected to past or present village officials, resulting in a more responsive village government that better incorporates citizens' demands in policy-making. This improves local service provision, as measured in both administrative data and citizen surveys. Overall, our findings suggest that leadership turnover can mitigate elite capture and improve governance at the grassroots level.

About the Speaker:

Masyhur Hilmy is a Lecturer at the School of Economics. His research fields are development economics, economics of education, and political economy. 

Registration:

To attend the event in person or virtually, please register here.