Check it out here.
And no, this original blog is NOT dead :)
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
ACFTA again
Ten, fifteen days in a row - maybe more - the media is filled with heavy mercantilism again. It's about ACFTA. They say, Indonesian market is being flooded with Chinese cheap products: from textile to fruit to toys. All these destroy Indonesian producers. Not good.
Interestingly, no one mentions about the benefits to consumers: cheap prices are good. One article in Kompas (17/4) rightly quotes a small orange trader saying that Chinese oranges are good, the supply is reliable, and the quality is better - all with cheaper price than local oranges. So yes, some local businesses are benefited, too.
But they are rotten, say the complainers. Really? According to a news (also Kompas 17/4, same page), the Chinese exporters have started to adopt Indonesian National Standard. So?
A few note that the increase in Indonesia's trade deficit against China has a lot to do with yuan's and rupiah's appreciation against dollar. And because rupiah appreciation is relatively stronger than yuan appreciation, Chinese products become relatively cheaper to Indonesian importers than the other way around. So, this is not just between Indonesia and China. It also involves US. And all other countries, for that matter. You want to block China? Block everyone else too. Good luck with that.
Of course I'm not saying everything China is good. But when you find smuggle or illegal products, impose the correct punishment, not to burn the whole ship. Otherwise, you'll just be used by them inefficient, rent-seeking, protection-loving domestic producers. At the cost of consumers. And all the rest.
Interestingly, no one mentions about the benefits to consumers: cheap prices are good. One article in Kompas (17/4) rightly quotes a small orange trader saying that Chinese oranges are good, the supply is reliable, and the quality is better - all with cheaper price than local oranges. So yes, some local businesses are benefited, too.
But they are rotten, say the complainers. Really? According to a news (also Kompas 17/4, same page), the Chinese exporters have started to adopt Indonesian National Standard. So?
A few note that the increase in Indonesia's trade deficit against China has a lot to do with yuan's and rupiah's appreciation against dollar. And because rupiah appreciation is relatively stronger than yuan appreciation, Chinese products become relatively cheaper to Indonesian importers than the other way around. So, this is not just between Indonesia and China. It also involves US. And all other countries, for that matter. You want to block China? Block everyone else too. Good luck with that.
Of course I'm not saying everything China is good. But when you find smuggle or illegal products, impose the correct punishment, not to burn the whole ship. Otherwise, you'll just be used by them inefficient, rent-seeking, protection-loving domestic producers. At the cost of consumers. And all the rest.
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Law for Sale -- Revised Proposal
Pramudya Octavinanda has very interesting ideas on how to design anti-corruption policy in response to my earlier posting here. Let me start with his points that I agree with.
First, the main objective of penal sanction system should be to recover the state's assets corruptors stole as much as possible. Second, it also has to prevent corruptors to buy (il)legal protection and political position that allows them to steal in the first place and afterward. In other words, it should make bad guys miserably poor.
Yet, what I don't really agree with is the idea to link two or more anti-corruption agencies for the sake of efficiency. If you let this happen, what we would likely have is an anti-corruption monopolist. This monopolist can sell their services either to corruptor or to the state whichever pays higher price. So if you want them to work in favor of the state and arrest the corruptor, the state has to pay or provide incentive more than what corruptor can do. This is expensive.
So I think I'd still opt for competition amongst anti-corruption agencies.
Now let's discuss Pram's objection on this competition. He said that without (formal) case transferability, competition won't work. But this is actually the very basic premise of my proposal for more competition -- that is to increase transferability. In my idea of transferability, bad guys can not rely on one agency to get protected, because other agencies can still arrest them legally. Competition would remove privilege of one agency over another; and with this, a case can be "transferred" to any agency willing to arrest the bad guy.
As for incentive for these competing agencies, as also asked by Mova in his comment, I'm thinking to incorporate Pram's insight on making corruptors poor and maximizing state's stolen assets recovery in incentive structure as follows.
Let's make the state (say President, or the Ministry of Finance) determine how much money they want to see back to state's coffer. If there is 100 bn IDR state's loss in a corruption case, they can set, say, 90 bn IDR recovery target and announce this to the competing anti-corruption agencies. Any agency taking this offer has to provide 90 bn IDR to the state but can take the remaining receipt, i.e 5 bn IDR if the agency can make the bad guy repay 95 bn IDR to the state.
So the state doesn't need to add more resources (higher salaries, bonus, etc) to anti-corruption agency, but any residual outcome belongs to the winning agency.
Do you think it will work?
First, the main objective of penal sanction system should be to recover the state's assets corruptors stole as much as possible. Second, it also has to prevent corruptors to buy (il)legal protection and political position that allows them to steal in the first place and afterward. In other words, it should make bad guys miserably poor.
Yet, what I don't really agree with is the idea to link two or more anti-corruption agencies for the sake of efficiency. If you let this happen, what we would likely have is an anti-corruption monopolist. This monopolist can sell their services either to corruptor or to the state whichever pays higher price. So if you want them to work in favor of the state and arrest the corruptor, the state has to pay or provide incentive more than what corruptor can do. This is expensive.
So I think I'd still opt for competition amongst anti-corruption agencies.
Now let's discuss Pram's objection on this competition. He said that without (formal) case transferability, competition won't work. But this is actually the very basic premise of my proposal for more competition -- that is to increase transferability. In my idea of transferability, bad guys can not rely on one agency to get protected, because other agencies can still arrest them legally. Competition would remove privilege of one agency over another; and with this, a case can be "transferred" to any agency willing to arrest the bad guy.
As for incentive for these competing agencies, as also asked by Mova in his comment, I'm thinking to incorporate Pram's insight on making corruptors poor and maximizing state's stolen assets recovery in incentive structure as follows.
Let's make the state (say President, or the Ministry of Finance) determine how much money they want to see back to state's coffer. If there is 100 bn IDR state's loss in a corruption case, they can set, say, 90 bn IDR recovery target and announce this to the competing anti-corruption agencies. Any agency taking this offer has to provide 90 bn IDR to the state but can take the remaining receipt, i.e 5 bn IDR if the agency can make the bad guy repay 95 bn IDR to the state.
So the state doesn't need to add more resources (higher salaries, bonus, etc) to anti-corruption agency, but any residual outcome belongs to the winning agency.
Do you think it will work?
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