In reality, subnational governments suffer from moral hazard, creating uncertainty which, in turn, causes economic inefficiency. The behavior of subnational governments cannot be observed by the central government. An analysis which takes into account this phenomenon is therefore needed. Decentralization implies delegating authority from central government to subnational governments. In this study, the subnational government is represented by the local government. This study utilizes a model of principal-agent. The central government acts as a principal who delegates fiscal authority to subnational governments who act as agents. By applying principal-agent model, we can use the primal-dual approach to analyze both revenue and expenditure assignment associated with the tax effort of the subnational governments. The result from artificial neural network approach shows that asymmetric information between central and subnational governments exists in Indonesia.Keywords: Artificial Neural Network, Fiscal Decentralization, Local Tax Effort, Primal-Dual, Principal-Agent.
The implementation of fiscal decentralization in Indonesia is expected to improve economic welfare for the people in the regions because it can bring the government closer to the community in providing public services according to people's preferences. As a consequence of decentralization, the central government provides transfer funds to local governments. The amount of transfer funds to local governments is around thirty percent of total National Budget (APBN), excluding central expenditure funds allocated to regions. Central government expect the fiscal dependence of local governments to be reduced. In fact, since regional autonomy was implemented in 2001 until 20 years later, regional independence has never been achieved. Ratio of local revenues (Pendapatan Asli Daerah,PAD) to total revenues in Regional Budget (APBD) ranged from 36.8 percent in Java to only 6.1 percent in Maluku and Papua., the rest still expects transfer funds from the central government. It is suspected that regional independence is closely related to the formulation of the General Allocation Fund (Dana Alokasi Umum, DAU) where PAD is a component of reducing DAU in the formulation. It can be seen from this formulation that the central government has ambiguous policies. On the one hand, it punishes local governments whose PAD efforts are high by providing a smaller DAU, but on the other hand they hope that the regional fiscal dependence will be decrease through an increase in PAD. When there is a view that the effort to collect local taxes is not an important factor for the regions, the regions will prefer to receive a higher DAU rather than increasing their tax collection effort but reducing the DAU. This study will try to analyze the efforts of local governments and will examine the data on variables related to the DAU whether it is consistent with its formulation. Through Weight Least Square (WLS) analysis which is more suitable for heteroscedasticity data that may arise from the diversity of data between regions, this study will see whether the DAU formulation becomes an incentive or disincentive for regional fiscal independence through increasing PAD. The results showed that the PAD variable had a negative relationship with DAU. This means that the DAU formula actually becomes a disincentive for regions to increase their PAD. The greater the PAD, the smaller the DAU received by the local government. Review this policies or reformulate the DAU formulation in accordance with the principles of local government fiscal independence need to be implemented immediately. ; Pelaksanaan desentralisasi fiskal di Indonesia diharapkan meningkatkan economic welfare bagi masyarakat di daerah karena dapat lebih mendekatkan pemerintahan kepada masyarakat dalam menyediakan pelayanan publik sesuai preferensi masyarakat. Konsekuensi dari adanya desentralisasi, pemerintah pusat memberikan dana transfer kepada pemerintah daerah. Jumlah dana transfer ke pemerintah daerah berkisar tiga puluh persen dari total belanja APBN, di luar dana belanja pusat yang dialokasikan ke daerah. Besarnya dana ke daerah tersebut membuat pemerintah pusat mengharapkan ketergantungan fiskal pemerintah daerah dapat dikurangi. Kenyataannya, sejak otonomi daerah diberlakukan tahun 2001 hingga 20 tahun kemudian, kemandirian daerah tidak pernah tercapai. Dana PAD (Pendapatan Asli Daerah) berkisar 36,8 persen di pulau Jawa hingga hanya 6.1 persen di Maluku dan Papua dari total pendapatan APBD, sisanya masih mengharapkan dana transfer dari pusat. Diduga kemandirian daerah terkait erat dengan formulasi Dana Alokasi Umum (DAU) dimana PAD merupakan komponen pengurang DAU dalam formulasi tersebut. Artinya semakin besar PAD akan semakin kecil DAU yang diterima oleh daerah. Terlihat dari formulasi ini bahwa pemerintah pusat mempunyai kebijakan yang ambigu. Di satu sisi mem-punish pemerintah daerah yang effort PAD-nya tinggi dengan memberikan DAU yang lebih kecil, namun di sisi lain mengharapkan ketergantungan fiskal daerah tidak terlalu besar melalui peningkatan PAD. Ketika ada pandangan bahwa effort koleksi pajak daerah bukan faktor yang penting bagi daerah, maka daerah akan lebih memilih menerima DAU yang lebih tinggi daripada meningkatkan effort koleksi pajaknya namun DAU dikurangi. Penelitian ini akan mencoba akan menguji data pada variabel yang terkait dengan DAU apakah konsisten dengan formulasinya. Melalui analisis Weight Least Square (WLS) yang lebih cocok untuk data heteroskesdasitas yang mungkin muncul dari keberagaman data antardaerah, penelitian ini akan melihat apakah formulasi DAU menjadi insentif atau disinsentif bagi kemandirian fiskal daerah melalui peningkatan PAD. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa variabel PAD memiliki hubungan negatif dengan DAU. Artinya formula DAU justru menjadi disinsentif bagi daerah untuk meningkatkan PADnya. Kebijakan untuk meninjau atau bahkan mereformulasi perhitungan DAU yang sesuai dengan prinsip kemandirian fiskal daerah perlu segera dilakukan. Kata Kunci: Dana Alokasi Umum (DAU), Desentralisasi Fiskal, Effort Pajak Daerah, Kemandirian Daerah, Pendapatan Asli Daerah (PAD)
