Salman Samir

One of the factors impeding the decline in poverty in Indonesia is the government’s lack of attention to the need to reduce income inequality. Fiscal policy and economic growth can effectively reduce poverty by lowering income inequality, so the inequality channel must be considered. Socioeconomic and infrastructure differences between provinces can influence the effectiveness of economic growth and fiscal policy in reducing poverty. This study aimed to assess the effects of economic growth and fiscal policy regarding spending and taxes on direct and indirect poverty reduction through lowering income inequality, as well as considering how these variables influence poverty by province. This study employed secondary data, including panel data for 2010–2023 from 34 provinces in Indonesia, which were analyzed using autoregressive cross-lagged SEM. This study found that economic growth and fiscal policy regarding spending on education and health are statistically significant in directly reducing poverty in regions outside Java but do not affect it through income inequality. Taxes increase income inequality, and the social safety net does not reduce poverty outside Java. The increased spending on education and health should continue, but improvements are needed in terms of targeting social safety nets and tax reforms to strengthen the system and reduce inequality.

One of the factors leading to the slow decline in poverty in Indonesia is the lack of government at-tention to reduce income inequality. Fiscal policy and economic growth can effectively reduce poverty after lowering income inequality, so the inequality channel must be considered. Socioec-onomic and infrastructure differences between provinces can influence the effectiveness of eco-nomic growth and fiscal policy in reducing poverty. This study aims to assess the effects of eco-nomic growth and fiscal policy on spending and taxes on direct and indirect poverty reduction through lowering income inequality and how these variables influence poverty by province. This study employed secondary data, including panel data for 2010-2023 from 34 provinces in Indo-nesia, which were analyzed using an autoregressive cross-lagged SEM model. The study finds that economic growth and fiscal policy on spending on education and health are statistically sig-nificant in reducing poverty directly in non-Java but do not affect it through income inequality. Taxes increase income inequality, and the social safety net does not reduce poverty outside Java. Increased spending on education and health should continue, with improvements in targeting so-cial safety nets and tax reforms needed to make the system more progressive and reduce inequality

In encouraging domestic industrialization, Indonesia plans to stop exporting raw materials for other commodities, including bauxite, tin, coal and copper. This study aims to assess the economic impact of the mineral export ban on Indonesia and other countries. The comparative-static version of the computable general equilibrium model (Global Tarde Analysis Project (GTAP)) is used to analyse the economic impact of the export ban, with a particular focus on GDP, welfare, terms of trade and external trade. The most recent GTAP version 9 database was used for the modelling simulations of the export ban. The GTAP version 9 database has three reference years: 2004, 2007 and 2011. It already aggregates 140 regions and 57 sectors. The modelling simulation results show that the policy of bauxite, copper and tin export tyres benefits the Indonesian economy. Meanwhile, Indonesia’s export ban policy harmed the economies of other countries, particularly China, Japan, India, Korea and the EU-28.