peer-reviewed publications
(click title for paper,
to show abstract,
= open access)
-
Measuring Economic Growth with a Fully Identified Three-Signal Model
with Andrea Civelli
and Ahmed Sadek Yousuf
The Review of Economics and Statistics, Accepted
NBER WP
FINAL DRAFT
We augment Henderson, Storeygard, and Weil (2012)’s two-signal model of
true income growth with a third signal to overcome its underidentification
problem. The additional moment conditions from the third signal help fully
identify all model parameters without ad-hoc calibrations of the GDP’s
signal-to-noise ratio. We characterize the necessary properties of the third signal.
Using the model, we recover the optimal weight of the GDP in the composite
economic growth estimates, which varies with the quality of the national
statistics and the geographic level of analysis. The model improves on existing
methodologies that use signals to measure true income.
-
The Marginal Disutility from Corruption in Social Programs: Evidence from Program Administrators and Beneficiaries
with
Rema Hanna and
Benjamin Olken
AER: Insights 6(1), March 2024
NBER WP
AEA RCT REGISTRY
Concerns about fraud in welfare programs are used worldwide as an argument against such
programs. If program administrators are particularly concerned about these issues compared to
citizens, this could lead to a mismatch between policy and true social preferences. To investigate
these issues, we conducted a survey experiment with over 28,000 social assistance program
administrators, and over 19,000 program beneficiaries, spread across Indonesia. The experiment
was designed to elicit the ‘marginal disutility of corruption,’ i.e., how respondents traded off
between more generous social assistance and more losses due to corruption and fraud. Merely
mentioning corruption in a hypothetical program reduced perceived program success equal to
distributing more than 20 percent less aid overall. However, conditional on there being corruption,
respondents were not very sensitive to the amount of corruption – in fact, overall respondents were
willing to trade of $2 of additional corruption losses for an additional $1 of aid distributed to
beneficiaries on the margin. We find that program administrators and program beneficiaries had
remarkably similar assessments of the marginal disutility of corruption relative to more expansive
assistance, showing little evidence of mismatch. The results suggest that anecdotes about corruption
can, indeed, affect support for programs more than the actual amount lost.
-
Urban Sprawl and Social Capital:
Evidence from Indonesian Cities
with Andrea Civelli,
Alex Rothenberg,
and Yao Wang
The Economic Journal, Volume 133, Issue 654, August 2023
NBER WP
We use detailed data from Indonesian cities to study how variation
in density within urban areas affects social capital. For identification,
we instrument density with soil characteristics, and control for community
averages of observed characteristics. Under plausible assumptions, these
controls address sorting on observables and unobservables. We find that
lower density increases trust in neighbours and community participation.
We also find that lower density is associated with reduced interethnic tolerance,
but this relationship is explained by sorting. Heterogeneity analysis suggests
that crime in dense areas undermines community trust and participation,
intensifying the negative impact of density.
-
Life in the Slow Lane: Unintended Consequences of Public Transit in Jakarta
with Tadeja Gracner
and Alex Rothenberg
Journal of Urban Economics 128, March 2022
FINAL DRAFT
ONLINE APPENDIX
EXTERNAL LINKS:
GLOBALDEV BLOG
VOXDEV
|
MEDIA:
JAKARTA POST
We study how TransJakarta, one of the world’s largest BRT systems, impacted commuting outcomes in Jakarta,
Indonesia from 2002 to 2010. Using planned lines for identification, we find that BRT station proximity
neither reduced vehicle ownership nor travel times, and it did not increase commuter flows. Instead,
the BRT exacerbated congestion along service corridors. To evaluate welfare effects, we calibrate
a quantitative spatial general equilibrium model with multiple congestible transport networks.
Counterfactual simulations suggest that implementation improvements, including increasing the quality
of expansion corridors, would significantly improve welfare with only modest costs.
previous title: "Improving Mobility in Developing Country Cities: Evaluating Bus Rapid Transit and Other Policies in Jakarta"
-
Dynamics and Stability of Social and Economic Networks: Experimental Evidence
with Juan Carrillo
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 188, August 2021
FINAL DRAFT
We use a laboratory experiment to test the dynamic formation of networks in a six-subject game where link formation requires mutual consent.
First, the game tends to converge to the pairwise-Nash stable (PNS) network when it exists, and to not converge but remain in the closed
cycle when no PNS network exists. When two Pareto-rankable PNS networks exist, subjects often coordinate on the high-payoff one.
Second, the analysis of single decisions indicates the predominance of myopic rational choices, but it also highlights interesting systematic
deviations, especially when actions are more easily reversible and when they involve smaller marginal losses. Third, behavior is
heterogeneous across subjects, with varying degrees of sophistication.
substantive revision of
The Strategic Formation of Networks: Experimental Evidence
-
Remittances, Child Labor, and Schooling: Evidence from Colombia
with Andres Cuadros-Menaca
Economic Development and Cultural Change 68(4), July 2020
FINAL DRAFT
REPLICATION FILES
We estimate the causal impact of remittances on child labor and school participation in Colombia using data from its main metropolitan areas.
We develop an instrumental variable (IV) strategy that leverages the unemployment shocks in the main destination countries of Colombian
migrants arising from the 2008 financial crisis. Our IV combines these shocks with the historical migration rates from Colombian regions
to these countries. We find that remittances reduce both labor participation and hours worked, but the impact on the latter is imprecisely
estimated. We do not find an effect of remittances on schooling. Relative to their mean participation shares, these impacts are larger
for younger children and girls. However, the negative impact for girls is associated with an even larger positive impact on their participation
in household work. Finally, we study how remittances affect the overall household labor supply. We find that remittances reduce the
labor supply of female adults, but their percent-change impact on adults is smaller than that on children.
-
Unity in Diversity? How Intergroup Contact Can Foster Nation Building
with Samuel Bazzi, Maisy Wong,
and Alex Rothenberg
The American Economic Review 109(11), November 2019
FINAL DRAFT
SLIDES
NBER WP
EXTERNAL LINKS:
VOXEU
AEA HIGHLIGHT
We use a population resettlement program in Indonesia to identify long-run effects of intergroup contact on national integration.
In the 1980s, the government relocated two million ethnically diverse migrants into hundreds of new communities. We find greater integration
in fractionalized communities with many small groups, as measured by national language use at home, intermarriage, and children's name choices.
However, in polarized communities with a few large groups, ethnic attachment increases and integration declines.
Residential segregation dampens these effects. Social capital, public goods, and ethnic conflict follow similar patterns.
Overall, our findings highlight the importance of localized contact in shaping identity.
previous title: "Unity in Diversity? Ethnicity, Migration, and Nation Building in Indonesia"
-
Skill Transferability, Migration, and Development: Evidence from Population Resettlement in
Indonesia
with Samuel Bazzi, Maisy Wong,
and Alex Rothenberg
The American Economic Review 106(9), September 2016
FINAL DRAFT
SLIDES
ONLINE APPENDIX
EXTERNAL LINKS:
IGC
VOXDEV
We use a natural experiment in Indonesia to provide causal evidence on the role of location-specific
human capital and skill transferability in shaping the spatial distribution of productivity. From 1979-1988,
the Transmigration Program relocated two million migrants from rural Java and Bali to new
rural settlements in the Outer Islands. Villages assigned migrants from regions with more similar
agroclimatic endowments exhibit higher rice productivity and nighttime light intensity one to two
decades later. We find some evidence of migrants' adaptation to agroclimatic change. Overall, our
results suggest that regional productivity differences may overstate the potential gains from migration.
-
Rethinking Indonesia's Informal Sector
with Alex Rothenberg,
Nicholas E. Burger,
Charina Chazali,
Rini Radikun,
Indrasari Tjandraningsih,
Cole Sutera, and
Sarah Weilant
World Development 80, April 2016
This paper reviews competing theories about the causes of informality in developing countries and
uses new data to determine the reasons for informality in Indonesia. We find that most of Indonesia's
informal firms are very small, micro firms that pay low wages, are relatively unproductive, and serve
local markets. Small-scale interviews reveal that firms are informal either because they have no desire to
expand or borrow from banks, or because of tax evasion. Finally, we demonstrate that a major program
to reduce registration costs had no effects on informality. Together, the evidence suggests that rational
exit and the dual economy theories of informality best explain Indonesias informal sector.
-
Improving Education Quality through Community Participation: Results from a Randomized Field Experiment in Indonesia
with
Menno Pradhan,
Daniel Suryadarma,
Amanda Beatty,
Maisy Wong, Armida Alisjahbana, and
Rima Artha
AEJ: Applied Economics 6(2), April 2014
Education ministries worldwide have promoted community engagement through school committees.
This paper presents results from a large field experiment testing alternative approaches to strengthen
school committees in public schools in Indonesia. Two novel treatments focus on institutional reforms.
First, some schools were randomly assigned to implement elections of school committee members.
Another treatment facilitated joint-planning meetings between the school committee
and the village council (linkage). Two more common treatments, grants and training,
provided resources to existing school committees. We find that institutional reforms,
in particular linkage and elections combined with linkage, are most cost-effective at improving
learning.
working papers
(click title for pdf, to show abstract)
-
Optimal Public Transportation Networks: Evidence from the World's Largest Bus Rapid Transit System in Jakarta
with
Gabriel Kreindler,
Tilman Graff,
Rema Hanna and
Benjamin Olken
| June 2023 | R&R, The American Economic Review
| NBER WP
VOXDEV
Designing public transport networks involves tradeoffs between coverage, service
frequency, and direct service. We use the expansion of the bus system in Jakarta,
Indonesia, to study these tradeoffs. We analyze how new direct connections, changes
in bus travel time, and wait time reductions affect bus ridership and aggregate flows,
and estimate a transit network demand model by matching the route launch events.
Commuters in Jakarta are 2-4 times more sensitive to wait time than bus time, and
inattentive to long routes. We develop a flexible framework to characterize optimal
networks. A less concentrated network would increase ridership and commuter welfare.
-
Does Performance Pay Enhance Social Accountability? Evidence from Remote Schools in Indonesia
with
Menno Pradhan,
Jan Priebe,
and Dewi Susanti
| December 2022
|
NBER WP
AEA RCT REGISTRY
Social accountability offers a viable alternative to top-down supervision of service delivery in
remote areas when travel cost renders the latter ineffective. However, this bottom-up approach
may not be effective when the community has weak authority relative to the service provider.
This paper investigates whether giving communities authority over teacher performance pay
improves the effectiveness of social accountability in Indonesia’s remote schools. We tested
incentive contracts based on either camera-verified teacher presence or community ratings of
teacher performance. Social accountability had the strongest and most persistent impact on
student learning when combined with the former. The results indicate that when the principal
(community) has weak authority vis-a-vis the agent (regular teachers), increasing that authority
using an incomplete but verifiable contract works better than using a more comprehensive but
subjective one.
previously: "Scores, Camera, Action: Social Accountability and Teacher Incentives in Remote Areas"
| WB 2021
| RISE 2020
-
The Long-Term Effect of Improving Early-Life Learning Preparedness on Cognitive Abilities
with Saurabh Singhal
| February 2021
We estimate the long-term impact of an unanticipated shift in the beginning of the academic year from January to July in 1979 in Indonesia.
Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that this policy led to between 0.21--0.28 standard deviation increase in cognitive abilities 30 years later.
We find evidence that the policy increased long-term cognition by improving learning preparedness in early grades, mainly by increasing the absolute age-for-grade upon enrollment.
We also find stronger impacts for individuals who had good health during childhood and did not experience early-life nutrition deficits.
Our results provide novel evidence on the long-term impact of improving school readiness on cognition in a low-income country.
-
Uniter or Divider? Religion and Social Cooperation: Evidence from Indonesia
| November 2012 |
ONLINE APPENDIX
This study investigates how religion influences particularized and generalized trust
as well as inter-group discrimination and tolerance in contemporary Indonesia. I combine
the individual-level data of the latest round of the Indonesian Family Life Survey
with the national census microdata and other nationally representative datasets to
examine two sources of variation through which religion may influence these attitudes:
individual religiosity and the community's religious composition.
Religiosity is positively associated with particularized trust and in-group preference,
and negatively with religious tolerance. The strengths of the associations between measures of in-group
preference (including political preference) and individual religiosity are much stronger
than those from gender, education, or per-capita expenditure; they are also strongest
among Muslims, the dominant majority in Indonesia. These associations are robust to
various identification strategies. Using selection on observables to benchmark the
potential bias from selection on unobservables, I find that the selection on unobservables
needs to be multiple times that on observables to explain away these results.
Meanwhile, consistent with previous empirical studies in economics and political
science in the United States and other countries, I find in Indonesia that individuals
are more cooperative and trusting of their community members in more religiously
homogeneous communities. At the same time -- and in support of the optimal contact
hypothesis of Allport (1954) -- individuals in more homogeneous communities exhibit
more in-group trust and are less tolerant of members of the religious out-groups. I
also find that the inclusion of segregation measures can substantially affect the size
of the diversity coefficients. Conditional on diversity, the segregation coefficients are
significant and their signs are opposite those of religious diversity for some of the
outcomes.
permanent working papers
The Effect of Proximity to Parks on Childhood Obesity
with Yiwei Qian, Rodolfo M. Nayga Jr, Michael R. Thomsen, Grant H. West, and Heather L. Rouse
| June 2015
Inadequate physical activities are associated with increased obesity among children in the United
States. Using a 2004-2007 panel dataset of children in Northwest Arkansas, we examine whether proximity
to neighborhood parks -- where children can be physically active -- is associated with a lower body mass
index (BMI). Using covariate matching, we estimate the average treatment effect (on the untreated) of
neighborhood parks proximity on children's BMI. We find that the exposure of neighborhood parks
around the home environment has significant and negative effects on rural children's BMI z-scores.
In particular, the effects are significant and negative for rural females, especially 5-9 year
old females. Finally, we employ a difference-in-differences (DID) model combined with matching
methods to measure the effect of new parks exposure. We find evidence that for rural children,
new neighborhood parks have a beneficial effect on children's BMI z-scores with longer time exposure.
Integration and Trade Specialization in East Asia
with Raymond Atje and Yose Damuri
| 2006 | CSIS WPE094
We study the dynamics of economic integration in East Asia since early 1990s, focusing
on the ASEAN5 countries, plus China, Japan and Korea.
The 1990s saw East Asia becoming more integrated as trade barriers fell, trade intensity and
intra-industry trade increased, and production networks formed. This greater integration has
resulted in changing patterns of trade specialization in the region, as different economies adjust.
Some economies (especially resource-rich economies) maintain their top trade-specialty
products, while others move towards higher-productivity manufacturing goods.
Nonetheless, we observe in all East Asian countries in our study a trend towards specializing in
products with higher sophistication and technological intensity. Meanwhile, our examination of the product
specialization mobility and our empirical analysis suggest no indication of East Asian countries
being in a "low-productivity specialization trap" which would disable them from shifting their
specialization towards higher-productivity and higher-value goods.
Properties of Fixed Effects Dynamic Panel Data Estimators for a Typical Growth Dataset
| 2002 | CSIS WPE062
This paper uses Monte Carlo to study the properties of four dynamic panel data
estimators for a typical growth analysis.
I benchmarked the Anderson-Hsiao (AH) and Arellano-Bond's one- and two-step GMM
against the least-square dummy variable (LSDV) estimator. I arrive at three conclusions.
First, LSDV produces biased estimates and the biases are significant even for a
moderate-sized time dimension. Second, there is no immediately obvious choice to
replace LSDV among the estimators considered here. For one, there is the bias-efficiency
trade-off. In addition, differences in the characteristics of data influence the performances
of the various estimators. Finally, serial correlations in the error terms, even at a low degree,
can introduce significant biases to the estimations.
Indonesia-China Economic Relations: An Indonesian Perspective
with Raymond Atje
| 1999 | CSIS WPE052
This paper assesses the significance of China for the Indonesian economy
from the Indonesian point of view.
In the past, the economic relationship between Indonesia and
China had not been smooth, mainly due to political reasons. However, increased
integration of China into the world market after its joining of the World Trade
Organization (WTO) provides the opportunity for an economic relationship that
is more detached from politics. As China becomes more integrated into the world
market, Asian as well as global economies will reap the benefits of a more
open trade partner. Furthermore, China's involvement in the ASEAN+3 group to
promote cooperation in financial, monetary, and general economic fields is an
important step toward further integration of Asian economies as a whole.
work in progress
Teach Afghanistan: Gender Impact of Tutoring for University Entrance in Rural Afghanistan
with Ahmad Mobariz
Willingness to Pay for Signals of Rare Events
with Peter McGee and Alexander Ugarov
The Impact of High-Tech and High-Touch Interventions on Mathematics Aptitude
with Milda Irhanmi, Gumilang Sahadewo, and Daniel Suryadarma
Do Mover Schools Move Learning Forward? The Impact of an At-Scale Government Education Innovation
with Milda Irhanmi, Gumilang Sahadewo, and Daniel Suryadarma
other publications
reports
Reforming Policies for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Indonesia
with Alex Rothenberg,
Nicholas E. Burger,
Charina Chazali,
Rini Radikun,
Indrasari Tjandraningsih, and
Sarah Weilant
| 2015 | Jakarta: TNP2K
Village Capacity in Maintaining Infrastructure: Evidence from Rural Indonesia
| 2010 | Jakarta: World Bank
Indonesia Commerce Report
| 2007 | New York: Economist Intelligence Unit
GAM Reintegration Needs Assessment
with Patrick Barron,
Samuel Clark, and Matthew Zurstrassen | 2006 | Jakarta: World Bank
The Environmental Impacts of the Electricity Sector Restructuring (in Indonesian)
with Agus Sari, Rizka Elyza, and Eriell Salim | 2003 | Jakarta: Pelangi
chapters
"Diversity, contact and nation building: Evidence from population resettlement in Indonesia"
in Dominic Rohner and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya (eds.), Nation Building: Big Lessons from Successes
and Failures | 2023 | London: Center for Economic Policy Research
"Civil Service Reform in Boalemo District, Gorontalo Province"
in Stefan Nachuk and Susannah Leisher (eds.), Making Services Work for the Poor: Nine Case Studies from Indonesia | 2006 | Jakarta: World Bank
"Healthcare Insurance Reform in Jembrana, Bali"
with Laila Kuznezov | In Nachuk and Leisher (op. cit.)
"Creating
Learning Communities for Children in the Polman District, West Sulawesi"
with Stefan Nachuk and Susannah Leisher | In Nachuk and Leisher (op. cit.)
"Economic Outlook: Indonesia"
in Southeast Asia Regional Outlook 2005-2006 | 2006 | Singapore: ISEAS
"Indonesia"
in Confronting Climate Change: Economic Priorities and Climate Protection in Developing Nations | 2000 | Washington DC: National Environment Trust
other published papers
Are Consumers Willing to Pay for Conservation Agriculture? The Case of White Maize in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
with Willy Mulimbi Byamungu, Lawton Lanier Nalley, and Rodolfo M. Nayga Jr. | 2022 | Natural Resources Forum 47(1)
Macroeconomic overview: Accelerating growth, maintaining stability
| 2004 | Indonesian Quarterly 32(3)
Social implications of the Indonesian economic crisis
with Ari Perdana | 2003 | Indonesian Quarterly 31(2)
Economic adjustment and the forestry sector in Indonesia
with Kurnya Roesad | 2003 | Indonesian Quarterly 31(2)
Indonesia's labour market during the crisis: Empirical evidence from the Sakernas, 1997-1999
with Tubagus Feridhanusetyawan | 2000 | Indonesian Quarterly 28(3)
Education in Indonesia before and during the crisis (in Indonesian)
| 2000 | Analisis CSIS 24(3)