Inpres and Inequality: A Distributional Perspective on the Centre's Regional Disbursements 1

Central government funding of local expenditures under the Inpres programs is a potentially important policy instrument for redressing regional inequalities in Indonesia. This paper examines the implicit distributional objectives underlying Inpres. The scheme is modelled as the outcome of a constrained social choice problem facing the centre. An econometric model of Inpres allocations is used to identify the centre's implicit social preferences over alternative regional distributions of consumption. Mild absolute-inequality aversion is revealed, although it is somewhat swamped by province-specific preference factors related to population size and density. No other local welfare indicators appear to influence Inpres allocations.     

财政转移支付与缩小地区差距

学者们对于财政转移支付在缩小我国地区差距中的目标定位存在分歧.本文利用财政转移支付理论和内生经济增长理论的分析表明,合理的财政转移支付政策在短期内可以缩小政府间的财力差距,在长期内能够通过影响各地的公共支出水平缩小地区经济发展差距.     

人力资本、R&D效率与地区差异

基于我国30个省域2002-2012年的面板数据,运用DEA-Tobit方法法实证检验了全国整体及三大地区人力资本存量及其结构对R&D效率的影响。结果显示,全国整体和东部的人力资本存量、高中及以上层次人力资本对R&D效率有显著促进作用,而中部、西部人力资本存量及各层次人力资本对R&D效率都没有显著促进作用。加强中西部地区人力资本的积累,提高其R&D效率,更好发挥创新对经济增长的支撑作用,是缩小与东部发达地区差异的关键。     

市场潜力、外部性与中国地区工资差异

改革开放以来，中国地区间经济增长率的差异直接导致了地区间工资差距呈现持续扩大的现象。本文以新经济地理学的空间工资结构理论为指导．运用1997-2004年省级面板数据，着眼于市场潜力、产业外部性和城市外部性三方面来考察现阶段中国地区工资差距的变化趋势。研究结果表明，市场潜力的空间分布与产业和城市的外部性是造成中国地区工资差异的重要因素。     

Regional Income Inequality and Welfare in China: A Dominance Analysis

Inference-based dominance analysis is applied to micro data containing comprehensive measures of rural and urban incomes in seven major regions of China. Ordinal inequality rankings are estimated for Lorenz curves of household income, per capita household income and square root equivalences scale adjusted income. Regional inequality is shown to be sensitive to the treatment of household size. The lack of reliable regional cost of living measures leads us to propose that entire food expenditure share quantile distributions be used as indicators of differences in well-being within and across regions. The results indicate that statistical rankings of Lorenz dominance and food share dominance are very different indicators of regional disparities in income and welfare in China. One urban region is shown to have been in the unenviable position in 1988 of being at the bottom of the Lorenz dominance ranking and tied for last in terms of food share dominance.     

中国农村区域收入不均等变动：基于经济发展和制度变迁的解释

本文利用改革以来的中国省级农村居民收入数据,首先通过基尼系数和泰尔指数两个指标的测度,分析了中国农村区域收入不均等的变化趋势。结果发现,总体上持续扩大的农村区域收入不均等由工资性收入差异所主导,主要体现在东、中、西三大区域间。而基于收入决定因素的夏普利分解结果则进一步表明,改革后农村制度变迁的区域不一致所造就的农村经济的非农化进程、物质和人力资本积累水平等增长因素的分化是农村区域收入不均等变动的最主要根源。     

The Inequality of Regional Economic Development in China between 1991 and 2001

This paper measures the unequal development of the regional economies in China and investigates the primary factors leading to the inequality. The official data on China's regional GDP and the regional GDP of three industrial sectors from 1991–2001, as reported in the China Statistical Yearbook and A Statistical Survey of China, are adopted to calculate and decompose the Gini coefficient for each year. The primary finding is that the levels of inequality in China's regional economies clearly showed a slight upward trend after 1991. The inequality of the overall GDP is primarily attributed to the between-group effect rather than to the within-group effect. It is also found that the regional inequality of the secondary industry sector's development accounted for half of the overall inequality. Thus, this study suggests that it is crucial for China to formulate and adhere to policies that will help it to develop the economy more equally among all areas and to develop the secondary industry sector among all regions/provinces in order to overcome the important issue of the inequality in regional economic development.     

Structural Changes and Regional Income Inequality in Indonesia: A Bidimensional Decomposition Analysis*

Using the bidimensional decomposition method of a population‐weighted coefficient of variation, this paper analyzes the changes in the determinants of interprovincial income inequality associated with structural changes in Indonesia from 1983 to 2004. The method unifies two inequality decompositions by regional groups and gross regional product components (industrial sectors) and, therefore, enables us to assess the contributions of gross regional product components to within‐region and between‐region inequalities, as well as to overall inequality. As the share of mining has decreased, the spatial distribution of manufacturing has played a more important role in the inequality of Sumatra and Kalimantan, while the primacy of Jakarta, with strong urbanization economies, facilitated by globalization and trade and financial liberalization, has determined much of the Java–Bali region's inequality and, therefore, overall inequality in Indonesia.     

贸易自由化对我国地区收入不平等的影响:来自中国的经验证据

文章基于协整的VAR模型从实证的角度研究了我国地区收入不平等与贸易自由化之间的长期均衡和短期动态关系。研究发现：（1）地区收入不平等、贸易自由化与经济增长之间存在长期均衡关系,贸易自由化和经济增长对于关注参数而言是弱外生变量;（2）贸易自由化在长期内减缓了我国地区收入不平等程度,但在短期内却导致了我国地区收入不平等程度的上升;（3）经济增长长期内趋于提高了我国地区收入不平等程度,但短期的影响方向不确定;（4）地区收入不平等是一个随机游走过程,不是一个含有结构突变的趋势平稳过程。     

The Indonesian Environmental Impact Management Agency (Bapedal): Its Role,Development and Future

This paper looks at the setting up and initial growth of the new Indonesian Environmental Impact Management Agency (Bapedal). Coming into being at a crucial time in the development of Indonesia's overall environmental management policy, Bapedal is the first national specialised environmental regulatory body to be established in Indonesia with implementation powers to monitor pollution and the negative impacts of development on the environment. As with any new agency in Indonesia, it has faced some major hurdles in its early development. However its ultimate success as an agency is of crucial importance if Indonesia is going to effectively handle its growing environmental problems over the next decade.     

Comment: On the Interpretation (and Misinterpretation) of Inequality Decompositions by Income Sources

This paper discusses interpretations of different inequality decomposition rules when inequality is decomposed by income sources. It argues that authors of a recent article based their conclusions on misinterpreted decomposition results. It also argues that marginal effects, derived as elasticities of inequality with respect to uniform increases in income from each source, are easily interpreted and can be compared across different decomposition rules.     

The Role of Public Infrastructure in China's Regional Inequality and Growth: A Simultaneous Equations Approach

Using a simultaneous equations approach, this paper empirically investigates the impact of two types of public infrastructure, transportation infrastructure and knowledge infrastructure, on industrial geography, regional income disparities, and growth across 286 cities in China. It is found that an improvement in transportation infrastructure that reduces trade costs on goods increases growth and decreases income gap at the expense of increasing industrial agglomeration between cities. Therefore, this paper confirms the existence of a trade‐off between spatial equity (more even spatial distribution of economic activities) and spatial efficiency (higher growth rate). However, for knowledge infrastructure that reduces trade costs on ideas, it is found that it increases growth but also decreases income gap and industrial agglomeration simultaneously. Moreover, the impact of knowledge infrastructure is found to be larger in the case of high labor mobility.     

结构冲击与结构转换对中国地区差距变化的影响

中国各地之间存在显著的产业结构差异,但现有关于中国地区收入差距的文献多受新古典单部门增长模型的影响,忽视结构冲击与结构转换的作用。通过构造变量,本文将各地区的实际增长率分解为结构冲击、结构转换9生产率增长三部分,从而克服了以往研究之不足。研究发现,结构冲击在1978年-1990年缩小了地区差距,但1990年—2002年扩大了地区差距;结构转换在整个改革期间均缩小了地区差距,从而加快农业发展和中西部地区产业结构转换有助于改善中国的地区收入分配状况。     

Widjojo Nitisastro and Indonesian development

Widjojo Nitisastro (2010) Pengalaman Pembangunan Indonesia: Kumpulan Tulisan dan Uraian Widjojo Nitisastro [The Experience of Development in Indonesia: A Collection of the Writings of Widjojo Nitisastro], Penerbit Buku Kompas [Kompas Book Publishing], Jakarta.

Widjojo Nitisastro is one of Indonesia's best-known economic policy makers. Much has been written by others about his role as a top adviser over more than three decades. This collection of his own essays helps fill out the picture. Seven main policy themes may be identified: the role of economic growth in helping overcome mass poverty; the need for economic policy makers to pay close attention to risk management and be constantly ready to respond to economic shocks; the importance of strong leadership and discipline in government; the need to scrutinise investment programs closely; the high priority to be given to borrowing programs and debt management; the role of the price mechanism; and the management of Indonesia's relations with the international community. Strong messages about growth, leadership and stability permeate the essays. The collection is a valuable contribution to the literature on economic policy making in developing countries.