Do Smaller Local Governments Bring Citizens More? Evidence from Direct Elections in Indonesia
利用印尼村级面板数据，研究发现地方政府规模缩小（因区划拆分）能增加公共品供给，但这一效果仅存在于实行直接选举的地区，且拆分后增加的财政收入更多投入发展性支出。
Abstract Do smaller local governments provide more for their citizens, especially when they are also held accountable to their citizens? This paper extends the empirical literature on the size of local governments by explicitly exploring one of the key influencing factors – direct local elections, a proxy for local accountability. Using an Indonesian panel of village-level outcomes data, the paper shows that a reduction in local government size (due to district splitting) increases public good provision but that this effect is restricted to districts that had direct local elections. It also provides suggestive evidence to show that increased revenue was channeled into developmental expenditures only in those split districts that faced direct elections. The identification strategy relies on a surprise local election announced while the number of local governments in Indonesia was increasing, which also abruptly imposed a moratorium on the process of splitting.