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Download by: [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] Date: 17 January 2016, At: 23:49
Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies
ISSN: 0007-4918 (Print) 1472-7234 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cbie20
Public-Sector Accounting Reforms in the
Post-Soeharto Era
Harun Harun
To cite this article: Harun Harun (2013) Public-Sector Accounting Reforms in the Post-Soeharto Era, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 49:3, 382-383, DOI: 10.1080/00074918.2013.850637
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00074918.2013.850637
Published online: 05 Dec 2013.
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382 Abstracts of doctoral theses on the Indonesian economy
poor but could fall into poverty should they experience shocks. These results signal to policymakers that it is not enough to consider the effects of oil-palm development on income growth, and that there is a need to take future risks into account in order to develop proactive poverty-reduction policies.
While a simple means comparison shows that contract smallholders are signii -cantly less vulnerable than non-contract smallholders, propensity-score matching (after having controlled for selection bias) shows that contract participation does
not signiicantly reduce their vulnerability to poverty – in large part because con -tract farming is dominated by households with greater asset endowments. The results of my risk-behaviour analysis show that subjective expectation towards all risks is driven by the level of exposure to past shocks. Asset endowments are another important determinant. This thesis reveals that a plan for oil-palm invest-ment tends to be encouraged by a high risk expectation in non-oil-palm enter-prises and by a low level of risk aversion, and that it seems to be independent of risk expectations in the oil-palm industry itself.
Overall, this thesis suggests that Indonesia’s contract-farming schemes need to be more pro-poor, and that policymakers must take risk into account in their attempts to reduce poverty.
© 2013 Eko Ruddy Cahyadi
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00074918.2013.850634
Public-Sector Accounting Reforms in the Post-Soeharto Era
Harun Harun (harun.harun@canberra.edu.au) Accepted 2012, University of Waikato
This study aims to understand the institutionalisation of accrual accounting systems in the Indonesian public sector. It relies on data from three sources: (a)
oficial documents (that is, laws and government regulations) on the adoption
and implementation of such accounting systems in the sector; (b) publicly avail-able information about the social, economic and political developments leading up to the adoption; and (c) interviews with 36 participants with either involve-ment in or an understanding of the internalisation of accrual accounting in the sector. Drawn from an integrated model of institutionalisation inspired by new
institutional sociology, this study identiies and discusses the features of the insti -tutionalisation process in Indonesia, both at the national level and within one municipality (used as a case study).
This study inds that the new ideals requiring the adoption of accrual account
-ing in the Indonesian public sector were irst mobilised in the 1980s by the tech -nocrats (that is, by economists and accountants) in the Ministry of Finance since
the 1980s. This mobilisation occurred when the country encountered a iscal crisis. The study also identiies that the desire to adopt accrual accounting may have
been driven by the wish to follow a similar practice to that adopted in other coun-tries. Nonetheless, Indonesia’s accrual accounting system was formally adopted
only after the collapse, in 1998, of Soeharto’s regime, through the issuance of Law
17 (2003) and the introduction, in 2005, of new government accounting standards.
Abstracts of doctoral theses on the Indonesian economy 383
At the organisational level, in the experience of one municipal government (as a case study), the internalisation of accrual accounting was motivated primarily by the presence of legal enforcement. Beyond this, the process and outcomes of
the institutionalisation of accrual accounting contradict the intended beneits; the
lack of skills and experience in using accrual accounting has increased the
munici-pality’s accounting costs, and its oficials have yet to use accrual-based account -ing for real decision mak-ing.
In addition, the power and old habits of local actors (in this case study, of
sen-ior municipal oficials) have made the adoption of accrual accounting the subject
of corruption. In this vein, the technical capacity, power and old habits of local actors affect the extent to which a new accounting system can be internalised. The process and outcomes of this institutionalisation are shaped not only by pressures from external factors but also by the activities, processes and routines of actors within organisations.
One of the implications of these indings for policymaking is that Indonesia’s
central government needs to be aware of the capacity of local governments in implementing policies and programs. The adoption of a business-style account-ing system in the public sector may be costly and act against its promoted purposes, while a lack of competencies may exacerbate frustration within organi-sations, fuelling active resistance and hindering implementation. Further research could address the relationship between capability building and the proximity of
educational institutions. The inluence of culture, such as a common practice of
bribery, should also be considered. The thesis also contributes to the public-sector accounting literature by reducing the gap between what is known and unknown about rarely investigated governmental accounting practices in one of Asia’s emerging economies.
© 2013 Harun Harun
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00074918.2013.850637
Agricultural Transformation and the Escape from the Middle-Income-Country Trap: Challenges Facing Small Farmers in
Indonesia in a Time of Green Restructuring
Shinyoung Jeon (shinyoung.jeon@graduateinstitute.ch) Accepted 2013, Graduate Institute of International
and Development Studies, Geneva
This dissertation argues that one of the main causes of stagnating growth in some middle-income economies is inadequate agricultural transformation. When a country attempts to accelerate its economic growth, it tends to priori-tise industrial development over agricultural development – the former is more straightforward, rapid and visible than the latter. However, stunted growth of rural agriculture will eventually weigh down sustained and balanced growth of the entire economy. Agriculture, when disregarded, results in an unsustainable expansion of the informal sector, without real growth of agricultural
productiv-ity and eficiency or a constructive transition to formal non-agriculture sectors.
