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Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies
ISSN: 0007-4918 (Print) 1472-7234 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cbie20
IN THIS ISSUE
Ross H. McLeod
To cite this article: Ross H. McLeod (2008) IN THIS ISSUE, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 44:3, 333-334, DOI: 10.1080/00074910802395302
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00074910802395302
Published online: 06 Nov 2008.
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Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, Vol. 44, No. 3, 2008: 333–4
ISSN 0007-4918 print/ISSN 1472-7234 online/08/030333-2 © 2008 Indonesia Project ANU DOI: 10.1080/00074910802395302
IN THIS ISSUE
Notes from the editor
As was the case exactly 11 years ago, the ‘Survey of recent developments’ in this issue, contributed by Vincent Ashcroft and David Cavanough, was being fi nal-ised just at the time that Indonesia appeared to be moving unexpectedly and rapidly in the direction of a fi nancial crisis. The second-quarter national income accounts showed continuing strong economic growth. The budget defi cit was well under control. Infl ation was a good deal higher than in the run-up to the pre-vious major crisis, but the exchange rate had been steady for an extended period, notwithstanding the emergence of a small current account defi cit in the second quarter. There had been a signifi cant downturn in share prices, but this had not been regarded as of major concern. It was not until September and October that the foreign exchange and capital markets began to be signifi cantly disturbed by the sudden and severe global fi nancial upheaval.
Prior to this, the major economic event was the announcement in mid-August of the 2009 budget. The original plan was for this to follow similar lines to that of 2008, but at the last moment the government decided to undertake signifi cant modifi cations. The fi rst was to reduce substantially the assumed average world oil price for the fi scal year in view of the rapid decline that began in July. The second was in response to a fi nding by the Constitutional Court that previous years’ budgets had infringed the Constitution by failing to allocate at least 20%of spending to education; accordingly, it was decided to implement a dramatic doubling of education spending. The government decided to modify the 2009 budget even further in October, after the stock market deteriorated so rapidly that the authorities felt obliged to close the stock exchange for three days. Details were sketchy at the time the survey was completed, and their fi scal impact has not been analysed here. Plans were also introduced hurriedly to boost liquidity and to guarantee the safety of bank deposits, in a bid to calm the markets and stave off any signifi cant downturn in the real economy. The survey also discusses poverty, electricity supply problems, and the changing nature of Indonesia’s relationship with aid donors.
Gerry van Klinken contributes this year’s discussion of recent political events, based on his Indonesia Update conference presentation at the Australian National University in September. He draws attention to the ‘ambiguities of democratic change’. On the negative side of the ledger, he perceives in some groups an appar-ent yearning for the cappar-entralised power and even the capacity for repressive intoler-ance of the Soeharto era. A fi rst example was that of two closely run gubernatorial elections, in which the outcomes were so strongly contested that eventually they had to be decided in Jakarta. A second example was the violent persecution of the Ahmadiyah sect by hardline traditionalist Islamic groups, culminating in a ‘semi–ban’ of the movement—an outcome interpreted as showing that democ-racy can create spaces for groups that are fundamentally anti-democratic. On the
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334 In this issue: notes from the editor
other hand, the author reports progress on the human rights front, and highlights the extraordinarily vigorous campaign of the Corruption Eradication Commis-sion (KPK). A senior intelligence offi cer alleged to have been responsible for the 2004 murder of human rights activist Munir has been brought to trial, although some witnesses have withdrawn their earlier testimony. Meanwhile, KPK has been so successful in its campaign to bring corrupt offi cials—including parlia-mentarians—to justice that it now risks a backlash and possible emasculation at the hands of those whose interests it threatens.
This issue of BIES includes the latest in our series of papers on relatively recent economic legislation. Howard Dick analyses the 2008 shipping law, within a his-torical context that highlights the ongoing general confl ict in government between protectionism and development. He argues that the restoration of democracy since 1998 has been accompanied by a revival of economic nationalism. Whereas in the 1980s the government deregulated the highly protected and ineffi cient shipping industry to facilitate a non-oil export drive, since 1999 there has been a gradual process of re-regulation, which has restored some of the old protectionist devices. This is likely to frustrate attempts to improve logistics and facilitate trade, not-withstanding a mild liberalisation of state control over the ports sector.
Hal Hill, Budy Resosudarmo and Yogi Vidyattama examine provincial data on economic growth, inequality, convergence, structural change and social indi-cators over the last three decades. Their analysis shows that although there con-tinues to be great diversity in economic and social outcomes, growth and social progress have been remarkably even throughout Indonesia. Surprisingly, per-haps, the poorest regions, located mainly in Eastern Indonesia, have generally performed about as well as the national average. The top performing provinces have been quite diverse, and the list has changed signifi cantly over time. For example, in terms of per capita non-mining GRP growth, none of the top six per-formers in the fi rst sub-period studied (1976–90) was still in the top six in the sec-ond (1991–2004). For the period as a whole, the three provinces best ‘connected’ to the global economy performed very well, although the other three of the top six performed just as well collectively.
We also present here a new set of 11 abstracts of recently completed PhD dissertations on the Indonesian economy and closely related fi elds. The number of such abstracts has increased steadily each year since the inception of this series in December 2003. Commencing in 2009, we will include new abstracts in each issue of the journal.
The book review section in this issue covers a study of regional bureaucracies and their efforts to reform and promote competitiveness; an analysis of small and medium enterprise wood furniture manufacturing clusters in Central Java; an edited collection of regional case studies on women and work in Indonesia; a book analysing the motives for and circumstances surrounding Eastern Indo-nesian women’s travel from their place of origin; and a study of sharia and consti-tutionalism that argues that the two can co-exist in Indonesia.
Selamat membaca!
Ross H. McLeod
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