Abstract:

The paper aims to examine the effects of fiscal decentralization and specific local autonomy on economic growth, employment, poverty, and welfare in the special province Papua (Indonesia). The study exploited the main data of the decentralization fund by using a panel data of eight regencies and municipals, particularly the regional autonomy fund, direct and indirect government expenditure, and economic growth. The paper used the path analysis to explore the relationships of the observed variables. The results revealed that the decentralization fund influenced significantly on government’s direct expenditure and economic growth. The special local autonomy's fund has influenced considerably on government’s indirect expenditure. Its effect has increased, through economic growth as the intermediating variable, meaningfully on employment, poverty, and welfare. The results are in line with the prior studies, which explore the consequences of decentralization and specific autonomy to spur the economic growth in certain regions. It implies that the economic development strategies in Indonesia’s less-developed regions should be started with a bigger autonomy transfer program to those regions and simultaneously enhanced it by special budget allocation to trigger and support the development.