electoral data from the Ministry of Home Affairs, the General Election Commission (KPU) and The Asia Foundation (TAF).

To calculate per capita growth we have used the Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) and the population data from the BPS.<sup>8</sup> The BPS calculates GRDP data at the provincial and district levels, but there is a two-year lag in producing the latter. Thus the latest available district level GRDP data are from 2005.<sup>9</sup> The measure of growth used throughout is the geometric growth rate over the period.<sup>10</sup> It is important to recognize that there are some significant weaknesses in the district level GRDP data produced by BPS. GRDP calculations are conducted separately by the BPS offices at the national, provincial and district levels and, although all offices are supposed to follow a common methodology, this can result in variations in the quality with which the data are compiled. Moreover, BPS offices at the provincial and national levels do not ensure that the lower level figures add up to the provincial and national aggregates. As a result, the sum of the published district GRDP varies from 91 percent to 105 percent of the published provincial GRDP depending on the province.<sup>11</sup> These weaknesses in the district level GRDP data do not necessarily create problems in the analysis of growth over time, although they are likely to add noise and make it harder to identify systematic influences on growth. Nonetheless, to account for potential biases we also conducted our analysis using average consumption from the household survey data in the place of GRDP growth.

One of the main challenges in constructing the database is in dealing with splitting districts. Enthusiasm for decentralization at the local level (coupled with strong fiscal incentives) has resulted in many districts splitting to form new, smaller districts. Over the years observed, the number of district governments in Indonesia grew by more than 50 percent. In 1999, the BPS recorded 299 districts in Indonesia. Within two years the number had increased rapidly such that the number of district governments receiving the General Allocation Fund (DAU) from the central government in 2001 was 336.<sup>12</sup> In 2005, Indonesia had 32 provinces and 434 districts that

> 8 There are in fact three different sources of population data: interpolations from the Population Census; Susenas data; and the population measures used by the Ministry of Finance to calculate fiscal transfers. In this analysis we use the first one because these are the official figures published by the BPS.

> 9 The BPS calculates the real GRDP data using two base years. Data from 1993 to 2003 are based on 1993 prices, whilst data from 2000 to 2005 are based on 2000 prices.  Initially, we attempted to calculate a complete series for real GRDP in 2000 prices by inflating the figures for real GRDP prior to 2000 by the average ratio of real GRDP in 2000 prices to GRDP in 1993 prices for the overlapping years (2000-03).  Unfortunately, inconsistencies in the re-basing process make this impossible.  Consequently, we use 1993 as the base year for analysis for the periods 1993-97, 19992001, and 1993-2003, and the year 2000 as the base year for analysis of the period 2001-05.

> 10 Sensitivity tests using the average annual growth rate and the logarithmic growth rate give qualitatively the same results.

> 11 District GRDP sums to 98 percent of the provincial GRDP for the median province.

> 12 The number of districts is not consistent across sources of data. For example, BPS’s Susenas and Podes surveys do not always have the same number of districts even when they are conducted in the same years. This is because of different sampling frame used at different times of the year. In addition the _de jure_ and _de facto_ status of a new district

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