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The end of the Suharto era in 1998 brought two prominent reforms to Indonesia: (i) a raft of anti-corruption policies and (ii) decentralisation of administrative and fiscal functions. District-level reported corruption swelled in following years and the role of decentralisation came under scrutiny, but data limitations prevented direct examination of a contributing role. This paper combines perceived and reported (observed) regional measures of corruption to examine spatiotemporal corruption patterns across Indonesian districts post-decentralisation. That period saw both improvements in perceptions measures and increases in the reported number of convicted perpetrators and in the reported value of financial loss. Cross-sectional comparisons show corruption perceptions (i) were milder in districts with less reported incidents of corruption, and (ii) responded positively to efforts by the judiciary and law enforcement agencies to curb corruption. These findings suggest that increased capability and resources allocated to combatting corruption play a large role in determining corruption perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At a state and territory level, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) has the highest average income and the lowest levels of disadvantage compared to all other states and territories in Australia. However, a state- and territory-based measure hides disadvantage at the local level by averaging out any disadvantaged areas with the less-disadvantaged areas. A spatial analysis of disadvantage can highlight where people are experiencing disadvantage, and can help inform the government's response to disadvantaged and marginalised people. This article shows that there is suburb-level disadvantage in the ACT, primarily due to housing costs. However, we also find that using the Socio-economic Index for Individuals (SEIFI), there are even disadvantaged households in less-disadvantaged ACT suburbs, and these disadvantaged households do not show up in the suburb-level data due to the averaging of advantaged with disadvantaged households within a suburb. This is particularly so in the ACT due to a policy of peppering public housing (where many disadvantaged people live) within less-disadvantaged neighbourhoods (commonly called mixed tenure). We argue that this mixed tenure policy means that area-based service provision may not be as efficient in the ACT, and that the ACT Government policy of providing services from town centres is an appropriate response. We also argue that due to the higher cost of living in the ACT, the onset of financial stress can be very fast if the main income earner loses a job. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]