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Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies
ISSN: 0007-4918 (Print) 1472-7234 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cbie20
FIFTY YEARS OF THE BULLETIN OF INDONESIAN
ECONOMIC STUDIES: 1965–2015
Pierre van der Eng
To cite this article: Pierre van der Eng (2015) FIFTY YEARS OF THE BULLETIN OF INDONESIAN ECONOMIC STUDIES: 1965–2015, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 51:2, 213-216, DOI: 10.1080/00074918.2015.1061911
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00074918.2015.1061911
Published online: 24 Aug 2015.
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ISSN 0007-4918 print/ISSN 1472-7234 online/15/000213-4 © 2015 Indonesia Project ANU uncertain about whether to include the publication of an academic journal on eco -nomic development in Indonesia. Nevertheless, in 1965 the Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies (BIES) emerged. It became—in the words of the late Widjojo
Nitisastro (1990, 43), one of Indonesia’s most eminent economists—‘a most valu
-able English-language academic journal about the Indonesian economy and a prominent, publicly available source on economic development in Indonesia’.
BIES continues to be widely regarded as the world’s leading journal on the devel -opment of what is now one of the 10 largest economies in the world.
One reason for Arndt’s uncertainty about publishing a journal was that he was
still developing his interest in Indonesia, as part of his position at the then Research
School of Paciic Studies (RSPacS) at ANU. Colleagues advised Arndt against establishing the Indonesia Project. Indeed, the mid-1960s were inauspicious years for an Australian to take an interest in Indonesia, as Australia–Indonesia relations
reached a nadir during konfrontasi. But Arndt’s initiative received a favourable
hearing from leading public servants in the Australian Department of External
Affairs.
As his ideas about encouraging the study of Indonesia’s economy took shape in 1964–65, Arndt found that little of substance was known about Indonesia’s economy. Increasing political radicalisation and xenophobia, as well as safety concerns, had caused many foreign observers, academics, and journalists to leave the country. Within Indonesia, local newspapers had been banned or censored in
favour of propaganda, the administrative systems that sustained the collection of
economic data had broken down, and the government had prohibited the pub
-lication of its budget. Data that were taken for granted in Australia’s case were simply not available for Indonesia, or were of dubious quality.
This, and the perilous state of Australia–Indonesia relations, convinced Arndt that Australia had to develop ways to improve its understanding of the economic
dificulties experienced by its nearest Asian neighbour. Arndt created a tentative irst issue of a journal in June 1965: a typescript print, produced by the RSPacS
* BIES editor, 2012–15. This brief overview draws on articles by Arndt (1990), Booth,
McCawley, and Sundrum (1984), McCawley (2002), and Brown (2015), as well as on BIES
and the annual reports of the ANU Indonesia Project.
214 Pierre van der Eng
offset printery. It contained an article titled ‘Survey of Recent Developments’, which took stock of the limited available data on Indonesia’s economy, and other
articles on current economic topics at the time. Proponents in the Department of External Affairs expressed interest in and support for the journal, and it continued
to be published as BIES. Distribution of the journal through the department and
through the Australian Embassy in Jakarta triggered increasing outside interest.
Given the dearth of independent analyses of the Indonesian economy, the Survey of Recent Developments series was of particular interest to many readers.
From the third issue (February 1966) onwards, the journal has been published three times a year, with the survey series as its prominent and enduring ixture.
BIES continued to ill a major gap in international interest in Indonesia when lit
-tle information about the economic issues facing the country was in the public
domain. This gradually changed from 1967 as successive governments under
President Soeharto opened up the country to foreign observers and facilitated the recovery of Indonesia’s statistical reporting system. Data again became available to support detailed analysis of Indonesia’s economic development.
By then BIES had established a reputation for publishing informed and inde
-pendent assessments of key issues of economic change in Indonesia. Whereas during 1965–66 most articles were written by academics at ANU, in 1967 the jour
-nal started to accept contributions from outside ANU and the coverage of topics broadened. Each survey instalment—then still written by Arndt, with contribu
-tions from his colleagues—appears to have been widely read. Formal publication and distribution arrangements were put in place in 1968. By 1969, subscription
and sales revenues allowed BIES to polish its appearance; it was no longer a
typescript bulletin containing assessments of current issues, but a typeset aca
-demic journal that also published articles based on original research in Indonesia.
In 1970, BIES had a print run of no less than 2,500 for distribution in Australia,
Indonesia, and internationally.
To ensure that each survey instalment was up to date, the production of the
journal was kept in-house, with only typesetting and printing outsourced. The time needed to write each survey meant that using a commercial publisher would
have jeopardised the freshness of the analysis. By 1998, typesetting was also done in-house. This arrangement continues today, even though BIES has been pub
-lished by Taylor & Francis, a commercial publisher, since 2001.
The journal has had a number of editors over the past half-century: Heinz W. Arndt (1965–82); Anne Booth, Peter McCawley, and R. M. Sundrum (1983–85); Anne Booth (1985–90); Hal Hill (1990–98); Ross McLeod (1998–2011); Pierre van der Eng (2012–15); and Blane Lewis, Arianto Patunru, and Robert Sparrow
(2015–). Ruth Daroesman (1968–83), Anna Weidemann (1983–87), Liz Drysdale (1988–2012), and Ben Wilson (2012–) have performed the role of managing editor.
Each editorial team has received sage advice from the journal’s editorial board and—since 1990—its international advisory board. Each board contains a stellar cast of Indonesian, Australian, and international academics knowledgeable about Indonesia. In 2015, under their guidance, subscriptions exceeded 2,300 and BIES
content was available in thousands more institutions worldwide.
Throughout its irst 50 years, the journal published an annual average of sixteen substantial articles, of which three were surveys. Although these numbers
remained roughly the same, the reputation of the journal and the activity of
mem-bers of both boards helped the editors to diversify the articles published. During
the late 1960s, most articles in BIES focused on current issues, before informed
discussions of macroeconomic policy, rural and agricultural development, and
demographic and regional development became more prevalent in the 1970s. The regional discussion yielded a series of articles that augmented the often Jakarta-centric view of economic development and brought to light the economic issues faced by Indonesia’s provinces. The series also inspired a still unrivalled book
containing views from the region on economic development in the country (Hill 1989).
In the 1980s and 1990s, BIES published articles on a growing range of top
-ics. Some of these articles contained original analyses based on ieldwork in Indonesia; others provided relevant and accessible insights from in-country con
-sultancies. The number of data-driven articles gradually increased as microdata became available from an increasing number of regular statistical surveys, such
as Susenas (the National Socio-economic Survey) and Survei Industri (an annual manufacturing survey). While such articles required some increased
economet-ric sophistication from readers, their authors were able to probe statistical evi -dence to deepen analysis in several policy areas, such as poverty and income
distribution. At the same time, BIES continued to publish articles that relected
on the broader context of economic issues, such as the reminiscences of eminent Indonesian economists and economic policymakers. This series, Recollections of My Career, was later collated in a book (Thee 2003).
BIES has always strived to go beyond offering its readers informed analyses
of current issues and academic articles. From 1967, it published reviews of books
on issues of economic development in Indonesia, reports on conferences and
research projects, and obituaries honouring those who had been associated with the journal or the ANU Indonesia Project over the years. More recently, from 2003,
BIES published abstracts of PhD theses, many of them containing results of origi
-nal research that otherwise might not have seen the light of day. In 2005, it began to publish an annual political update, based on the understanding that since refor-masi took hold, politics, economic policy, and economic development in Indonesia
have been intricately interwoven.
As this description of the journal’s diverse role makes clear, BIES seeks to serve
a wide range of readers: not just professional economists, but anyone with an interest in informed research on Indonesia’s economic development; not just aca
-demic economists, but anyone with an interest in Indonesia’s public-policy issues. Compared with the late 1960s, much more information about Indonesia’s economy is now readily available. Consequently, the role of BIES has evolved; it
now places less emphasis on drawing attention to the facts of economic change in Indonesia, and more on facilitating an informed understanding of such facts.
Other publications have come to do that, as well: the World Bank’s online Indonesia Economic Quarterly, for example, has, since 2009, become a convenient go-to pub -lication, while Economics and Finance in Indonesia publishes results of economic
research on Indonesia. But BIES remains widely known for offering independ -ent assessm-ents of rec-ent developm-ents in Indonesia in its survey series, and for maintaining high standards for its diverse range of analytical articles on economic development in Indonesia. All of this is in line with the intellectual tradition of the
now somewhat unfashionable Oxford PPE (philosophy, politics, and economics) degree, long advocated in Australia by the founder of the ANU Indonesia Project,
the late Professor Heinz W. Arndt.
216 Pierre van der Eng
REFERENCES
Arndt, H. W. 1990. ‘A Note from the Editor: 25 Years of BIES’. Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies 26 (2) 45–58.
Booth, Anne, Peter McCawley, and R. M. Sundrum. 1984. ‘Professor H.W. Arndt’. Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies 20 (2): iii–vi.
Brown, Colin. 2015. Australia’s Indonesia Project: 50 Years of Engagement. Canberra: BG
Publishers.
Hill, Hal (ed.). 1989. Unity and Diversity: Regional Economic Development in Indonesia since 1970. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McCawley, Peter. 2002. ‘Heinz Arndt: An Appreciation’. Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies 38 (2): 163–76.
Nitisastro, Widjojo. 1990. ’25 Years of BIES: An Indonesian Perspective’. Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies 26 (2): 43–44.
Thee Kian Wie. 2003. Recollections: The Indonesian Economy, 1950s–1990s. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
