During the COVID-19 pandemic the budget transfer from the central government to local governments have decreased due to lower revenues. This creates a challenge for local governments, especially since they have limited limited alternative sources of income. On the other hand, local governments are expected to play a pivotal role in responding to the health crisis and economic recovery. This study aims to contribute to the emerging literature on local government responses to budget-related challenges brought on by the pandemic. Looking deeper into each component of the local government budget at the provincial level, we compare the condition before the pandemic to the present condition. Further, we map the fiscal capacity index and regional fiscal matrix with several macroeconomic variables such as GDRP, unemployment, and poverty, and enrich the analysis with in-depth interviews. The analysis yield several fiscal policy recommendations for rebuilding the medium-to-long term local government capacity in the aftermath of the crisis.

Speaker: Nauli Desdiani (LPEM FEB Universitas Indonesia)

Friday, 3 September at 10.00-11.30am WIB

Ikuti lewat Zoom (registrasi diperlukan): https://bit.ly/fkp3sept
atau lewat YouTube bit.ly/fkp-live

Photo by Rio Lecatompessy on Unsplash