Lack of Incentive for Researcher (From the perspective of Labor Supply Function)
Posted by Masyita at 7:32 AMFor those who choose to become academics or researcher have only a few choices on the job market. There were not many economics research institute in Indonesia. I remembered when I was just graduated from my bachelor degree; some of my friends who applied for a job as a researcher in Jakarta have only few choices, LPEM, CSIS, Semeru, Indef. Some applies as Research Assistant for Bappenas projects, and other projects arranged by related ministries. Some applied to become a civil servant, Ministry of Industry, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Foreign Affair and Bank of Indonesia. Most of us applied to work in the private sector, mostly not directly related to what we have learnt at the faculty. Some has been lucky to be accepted as research assistant at the International Organization which does research even though that’s not their core activities, such as the World Bank, ADB, IMF, etc.
What influence people decision in choosing a job? The labor supply decision is merely the function of numbers of hours worked, effort exerted in the job, years of education and age of retirement. A friend of mine (Yudo) said that idealism also has higher weights on the decision especially for the younger people. When people are still young and does not have dependent like wife, husband or kids, the opportunity cost of choosing a job which suites their idealism is smaller. When they become older and more experienced plus more expensive living cost, the opportunity cost becomes bigger.
When, one of my lecturers, Hal Hill, visited Jakarta last two months, we met for dinner and he told us that he was one of the reviewers of Ausaid Scholarships. What they found is that more and more Ausaid scholarship awardees from Indonesian research institute or lecturer at Indonesian university move to International Organization such as the World Bank. From the perspective of Ausaid, it brings loss to Indonesian organization because one of the reason to give them scholarship is for these organization capacity building. The fact that they are moving to International Organization makes these International Organization get the “free” benefit.
For government organization, the lack of home-grown analyst or researcher, according to Sri Mulyani, the Coordinating Minister for Economics Affair, in one of our meeting, has been one of the cause of government dependence to consultants (private and/or from the international organization or donors). Not only that these type of job (civil servant) is highly bureaucratic which makes it more difficult, but also to a more fundamental problem, which is the lack of incentive. Home-grown analyst within the government body will choose to do part-time job as consultant in one of the international organization, which will make the pool of home-grown analyst always empty.
If we assume that the more idealistic job is a lower-paid job (not always true) and the higher-paid job is less idealistic. If we can describe the utility function of two kinds of researcher, assuming there are only two types of job, first the lower-paid researcher and second the higher-paid researcher.
Whenever young researcher faces higher living cost (can be caused by marriage, inflation, etc), it’s like taxing their more-idealistic-lower paid job. The substitution effect will makes him still enjoy more-idealistic-lower-paid job but the income effect will make him work more for the lower-idealistic-higher-paid job. The final result would depend on the magnitude of these two effects. If the income effect is higher than the substitution effect, then he will choose to do more higher-paid job rather than the lower paid one.
When the young researcher is still poor (compare to his own expenditure) the income effect will tend to be higher than the substitution effect. When he’s getting richer, the substitution effect will tend to be higher, because the cause of choosing lower idealistic even though higher-paid job is also getting higher. This will cause him to choose more of the idealistic job.
The decision will of course depend on the value of idealistic job and money for each person. Rich and poor will also depend on each person circumstances, family needs and life style, not in nominal term. Some will choose only to do the lower-idealistic-higher-paid job, and some choose to do only the more-idealistic-lower-paid job. Some will choose to do both. I, myself, am more interested to do both (if possible ;))
The best solution for government bodies or Indonesian research institute is to provide more incentive for the young researcher. It can be in the form of income or other form of appreciation such as the opportunity to develop their capacity as researcher. These opportunity might include scholarship, encouragement to write in academics journal or newspaper, training or even direct coaching to the potential young researcher like what has been done by Pak Sadli (almarhum) to the 3 Diva (Mari Pangestu, Sri Mulyani and Miranda Goeltom). For this community such appreciation and opportunity to learn can be an interesting incentives for young researcher, not only money.
1 comments:
- At September 27, 2008 at 1:11 AM Yus Medina P said...
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a researcher...hmm....it seems to be not interesting especially from social field. I once talked with a friend, research field is not a fancy job. If you want to live with the ideal things you can choose it, otherwise you have to give up. It seems to be pessimistic but it is also realistic. But I think, we can't live only with current situation, we should see the future as well. There will be a time where our works will be seen and appreciated as long as we keep our way.
Whose gonna be the next diva???:D
btw sit...I am not sure whether the richer researcher will go back to the idealistic one because it will lessen his utility as the less income he will get.