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We analyze how regional economic structures affect the impact of monetary policy on rates of inflation across 34 Indonesian provinces. The paper first applies structural factor augmented vector autoregressive model (SFAVAR) to all the 34 provinces based on monthly provincial data in order to measure the length and magnitude of responses of regional inflation to monetary policy shock, derived from the consequential impulse response functions of 34 provinces. In the second step, we analyze the impact of economic structures on the length and magnitude of regional inflationary responses of 34 provinces. We find that the impacts of monetary policy across regions are significantly influenced by economic structural variables such as manufacturing sector share to GDP, mining sector share to GDP, bank lending share to GDP and export share to GDP. In addition, we found the spatial lag, rate of inflation of neighboring provinces, is also statistically significant. In a similar fashion, economic structural variables such as manufacturing sector share to GDP, construction sector share to GDP and investment share to GDP are found statistically significant in explaining regional differences of monetary policy efficiency. Our findings imply economic structures of provinces have to be incorporated to designing monetary policy in Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the Reform Era began in 1998, a democratization process has taken place in Indonesia. By assessing the three elements of state, economy, and society, and the evolution of their interactions, this study concludes that Indonesia's contemporary political condition has been shaped by a continuously strong and dominant state, increased participation of society, and the adoption of the developmental state model. The state remains a dominant actor since a strong presence and role of the state continues to be sustained by the elites to maintain power. Society's demands to receive government assistance have deepened the state's role. While in the past the state was heavily supported by the military, today, the presence of the military within the democratic system has significantly diminished and been replaced by different economic actors. The elites are more dependent on support from society to remain in power and to implement policies that are generally achieved through economic incentives. Public participation appears in a majority of social, economic, and even political affairs, mainly to fulfill the requirement of being democratic. As for the economy, its role is becoming larger and has increasingly been used to replace the coercive power approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aspiration to achieve food self-sufficiency has returned to the Indonesian policy agenda in the post-reformasi period. After being side-lined as a policy goal immediately after the transition to democracy, political leaders since 2009 have increasingly cited self-sufficiency to justify policies to raise domestic food production and reduce food imports. These policies are often inefficient and at odds with the goals of food security and decreasing poverty. The self-sufficiency drive is thus often attributed to 'political' motives. But what kind of politics is at work in Indonesia's renewed self-sufficiency drive: a broad-based politics that aims to foster support among smallholder food producers, or an elite politics based on rent-seeking by narrow constituencies? The distributional implications of food self-sufficiency policies in the post-reformasi period suggest that both dynamics are at work. Narrow elite interests have benefited, but smallholder landowners account for a significant share of many agricultural crops. Although smallholder landowners are increasingly differentiated, they constitute a reasonably broad-based constituency. The valorisation of agriculture reflected in the self-sufficiency drive and related rural sector policies may lay the foundations for a more inclusive agricultural political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indonesia has managed the complex challenges of the global economy well. The country's capital outflows were smaller in 2018 than during the Taper Tantrum in 2013; the rupiah had regained most of its lost ground by January 2019; the Indonesian stock market has outperformed its peers; growth is forecast to remain stable; inflation is low; unemployment remains below its five-year average; consumer and business confidence are robust; and the government budget has improved through a smaller deficit and cheaper borrowing costs. But significant risks remain. This paper assesses these risks and evaluates the adequacy of Indonesia's crisis management framework. It finds that the framework has serious deficiencies that could see liquidity challenges become systemic solvency crises. The framework effectively removes Bank Indonesia as the lender of last resort, risks politicising the process of crisis response, and could mean slower, less effective responses to crises. This paper explores how the framework could be improved and what reforms could be undertaken to deepen Indonesia's financial system, strengthen financial resilience, and boost the long-term growth outlook. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how education in Indonesia can help create tolerant and multicultural citizens through the analysis of policies and practices. After the political shift in 1998, Indonesia issued education law No. 20 in 2003 which contains, though vague, a couple of articles that can underpin the development and implementation of multicultural education. This is a 'spirit' of multicultural education, which has been interpreted in subsequent regulations and decrees. In this paper, the author explores how these policies and school curricula have been translated into practices. The author conducted a series of ethnographic fieldwork in two provinces, Yogyakarta and Central Kalimantan, visiting six different schools: four religious (three Islamic and one Catholic), one state secular and one state vocational. The findings suggest that there were inconsistencies between policies and practices of multicultural education due to a lack of explicit policies and incapable education decision-makers and teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the positive growth performance of Indonesia over the past two decades, concerns have been expressed about whether the country would be caught in a middle-income trap. This paper offers a systematic analysis on growth slowdown for the Indonesian provinces, against the backdrop of other developing Asian economies including the ASEAN economies, Greater China economies and the Indian sub-national economies. Provincial-level analysis for Indonesia is appropriate given the size and great variations in the levels of development of the Indonesian provinces. By employing a logistic regression as well as Bayesian Model Averaging techniques, we ascertain the determinants of growth slowdown in Indonesian sub-national economies. Having identified the underlying drivers of growth slowdown in each income group, we also assess the predictive probability of each sub-national economy in Indonesia experiencing growth slowdown in the near future. Overall, we find that the Indonesian sub-national economies have a 10% chance of experiencing growth slowdown in the 2012–2017 period on average which is lower than the average predictive probabilities for Greater China and India sub-national economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article corrects and amends earlier calculations of Indonesia's colonial surplus appearing in past issues of the Journal of Contemporary Asia. The final corrected total for 1880-1939, the period of domination by private enterprise, is now put at approximately 27 billion Netherlands guilders. The main reasons for the changes were two faulty methods of calculation used previously and the realisation of several sizeable omissions more from the balance of payments. The new methods of creating estimates of missing items are explained whilst the erroneous method of the balance of payments dealing with undistributed profits is discussed critically. The balance of payments specifies no data at all for undistributed profits although, clearly, they are large. It is also observed that almost all other discussions of the size of undistributed profits deal with the part not mentioned in the balance of payments and are unaware of the hidden element that is included. Our total is almost certainly an underestimate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) receives considerable funding from the Australian government to undertake a variety of migration control operations in Indonesia. In this article, we highlight how the IOM’s migration management operations aim to target asylum seekers, control their movement, and prevent their arrival on Australian shores. IOM Indonesia’s approach involves the detention of irregular migrants, the return of asylum seekers and refugees to their countries of origin, the strengthening of Indonesia’s border controls, and public information campaigns to dissuade people from taking boats to Australia to seek asylum. We argue that these tactics frequently compromise the rights of asylum seekers and refugees in Indonesia by prioritising Australia’s geopolitical deterrence agenda. Such activities present a contradiction with the IOM’s closer relationship with the United Nations since 2016, which we critique as ‘blue-washing’: creating the impression of a humanitarian organisation while simultaneously carrying out migration control activities on behalf of donor states of the global north. We draw upon financial records, freedom of information requests and previous scholarship on asylum seekers in Indonesia to critique the IOM’s activities across Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The objective of this study is to obtain population norms and to assess test-retest reliability of EQ-5D-5L and WHOQOL-BREF for the Indonesian population. Methods: A representative sample of 1056 people aged 17–75 years was recruited from the Indonesian general population. We used a multistage stratified quota sampling method with respect to residence, gender, age, education level, religion and ethnicity. Respondents completed EQ-5D-5L and WHOQOL-BREF with help from an interviewer. Norms data for both instruments were reported. For the test-retest evaluations, a sub-sample of 206 respondents completed both instruments twice. Results: The total sample and test-retest sub-sample were representative of the Indonesian general population. The EQ-5D-5L shows almost perfect agreement between the two tests (Gwet’s AC: 0.85–0.99 and percentage agreement: 90–99%) regarding the five dimensions. However, the agreement of EQ-VAS and index scores can be considered as poor (ICC: 0.45 and 0.37 respectively). For the WHOQOL-BREF, ICCs of the four domains were between 0.70 and 0.79, which indicates moderate to good agreement. For EQ-5D-5L, it was shown that female and older respondents had lower EQ-index scores, whilst rural, younger and higher-educated respondents had higher EQ-VAS scores. For WHOQOL-BREF: male, younger, higher-educated, high-income respondents had the highest scores in most of the domains, overall quality of life, and health satisfaction. Conclusions: This study provides representative estimates of self-reported health status and quality of life for the general Indonesian population as assessed by the EQ-5D-5L and WHOQOL-BREF instruments. The descriptive system of the EQ-5D-5L and the WHOQOL-BREF have high test-retest reliability while the EQ-VAS and the index score of EQ-5D-5L show poor agreement between the two tests. Our results can be useful to researchers and clinicians who can compare their findings with respect to these concepts with those of the Indonesian general population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of unconditional cash transfers in Indonesia on poverty and inequality while, unlike much of the previous literature on the welfare impact of such transfers, acknowledging that they will have both a direct effect and an economy-wide effect on the national economy.Design/methodology/approach The methodology used is a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model of the Indonesian economy. The unique feature of this model, which is very relevant in this study, is the disaggregation of households by expenditure classes; this allows for precise estimation of the distributional impact and poverty incidence.Findings The results suggest that, despite a large reduction in poverty, particularly in rural areas, such transfers reduce the Indonesian GDP, especially if domestically financed through increasing the value added tax of all commodities. However, the GDP reduction can be reduced by approximately half when cash transfers are financed by reducing the distortionary fuel subsidy. Moreover, cash transfers financed by reducing the fuel subsidy also reduce inequality by much more than otherwise. Various extents of the distribution of the transfers are compared, from giving them to the poorest 10 percent to distributing them equally to all households. The benefit of the transfers, in terms of reduced poverty and inequality, is found to be smaller when the author extends the beneficiaries toward the non-poor, although the economy-wide cost, in terms of the reduced GDP, is smaller.Research limitations/implications The CGE model used in this model is a comparative-static model that does not explicitly model the time dimension, i.e. how the impact of the transfers evolves over time. This is important if we want to know the timing of the transfers and how and when they are translated into impacts.Practical implications To reduce the contractionary effect of cash transfers program, government/policy makers should carefully look for appropriate financing such as from removing subsidy with pre-existing distortions like fuel subsidies.Social implications Government needs to carefully design cash transfers to minimize the negative indirect (economy-wide) implication for the national economy and to make sure that the transfers reach the targeted beneficiaries.Originality/value Few previous studies have acknowledged the indirect economy-wide effect in analyzing the impact of cash transfers. To the author’s knowledge, this has never been done before for Indonesia. Unlike previous studies, this paper is unique as it contains sensitivity analysis on how transfers can be mistargeted and reach the non-poor and looks at the implications not only for poverty and inequality but also for the rest of the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies for the first time, the separate causal impacts of both onsets of, and recoveries from, physical disability on both employment status and hours worked. Using panel data from Indonesia we find that more than half of working age adults in our sample experience a physical disability at least once in four waves over 16 years. Changes in physical functioning have no effect on hours worked among the employed. However, onsets of physical limitations lead to an increase in the probability of leaving employment, while recoveries increase the probability of returning to work. A larger effect is found among self-employed workers compared to salaried workers. Given the rising prevalence of physical limitations with age, physical disability may be a significant barrier to employment for older working age adults in Indonesia. These results overall point towards a need in Indonesia for policies that support maintaining work or returning to work for persons with physical disability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban agglomerations are becoming a vital geographic unit for nations to sustain economic growth and development. However, agglomerations also pose significant challenges for development planning. They are complex, dynamic and huge systems. Their interconnectivity blurs the boundaries between cities and peripheral regions, and makes traditional city boundaries, often imposed by administrative needs, essentially obsolete. Despite this, the importance of an integrated approach to development planning is particularly acute for coastal urban agglomerations that are threatened by a range of geological hazards, hydro-meteorological hazards and climate change impacts. This paper is an account of the first phase of a longer-term study into agglomeration development planning of Sarbagita Metropolitan in Bali Province, Indonesia, with a focus on the integration of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaption into the planning process. This phase of the study presents an initial analysis of the strategic issues for the development planning of Sarbagita Metropolitan, and a mapping of stakeholders involved in climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction within the region. Data was collected through interviews with key stakeholders and a policy analysis. The results address how urban agglomeration is addressed within national development planning, the nature of urban agglomeration in Bali Province, the management of development planning in the region, the stakeholders involved in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation in Bali Province, and the strategic challenges for development planning within the region. Key issues identified through this initial analysis include the important role the agglomeration plays in the national strategic development plan as a centre for regional economic development based on the tourism industry, the importance of infrastructure sharing, interconnectivity, and water/food security among the cities and regencies, and the lack of integration or consideration of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation in the agglomeration plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of private sector engagement on risk reduction is increasingly mentioned over the last years. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 stresses that the private sector should be a crucial partner in achieving disaster resilience. However, the contribution by the private sector is still rare and mostly undertaken by large multinational firms with just a few positive impacts on the local level. Particularly manufacturing firms are heavily exposed to floods in Indonesia; Jakarta and Semarang are prominent examples. Broader flood risk reduction measures are still insufficiently developed. Therefore, it is argued that firms can reduce the flood risk through collective adaptation measures. We understand collective adaptation as collaborative activities to reduce risks that firms are either initiating or participating together with other firms, the community, NGOs and authorities. Our own research has revealed that particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) rarely engage in collective flood adaptation. Based on our findings, this paper examines which circumstances determine the willingness of SMEs to contribute to flood risk reduction. Instruments in order to increase the willingness to collective adaptation are also discussed. Scenario-based experiments with 120 SMEs have been conducted in Jakarta and Semarang. These scenarios contain different risk reduction measures (polder system, river expansion and sensitization program), each with different actors’ constellation of contribution. Comparative logistic regressions have been applied to determine context-specific factors, e.g. risk behavior, firm-specific characteristics or level of flood-proneness that influence the willingness to contribute to flood risk reduction. Overall, the paper provides deeper insights in understanding firms’ engagement in flood risk reduction and gives answers of how firms can be motivated to become an active player on building resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Bovine babesiosis, mainly caused by Babesia bovis and B. bigemina, is a huge threat to the livestock industry. In Indonesia, the current distribution of the disease is unknown due to a lack of scientific study. Methods: In the present study, 487 blood samples were collected from cattle with different breeding and age groups in a broad geographical area across the archipelago. The presence of antibodies and current infections of B. bovis and B. bigemina were determined using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), immunochromatographic test (ICT), and nested PCR (nPCR) targeting B. bovis SBP-4 and B. bigemina RAP-1a genes. Sequence analysis was performed to the amplicon of B. bovis SBP-4, B. bigemina RAP-1a, and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of ribosomal RNA of both Babesia species. Results: In total, B. bovis positives were detected by ELISA, single-ICT, dual-ICT and nPCR in 340 (69.8%), 317 (65.1%), 307 (63.0%) and 247 (50.7%) samples, respectively. For B. bigemina, the positive samples were detected in 134 (27.5%), 130 (26. 7%), 127 (26.1%) and 93 (19.1%), respectively. Furthermore, mixed infections were found in 125 (25.7%), 113 (23.2%), 109 (22.4%) and 52 (10.7%) samples, respectively, which occurred only by chance and were not influenced by additional factors. The obtained nucleotide sequences of B. bovis SBP-4 and B. bigemina RAP-1a genes showed a high homology with other isolates from different countries. Further nucleotide sequence analysis using ITS region showed a great genetic diversity of B. bovis isolates among sampling locations; a lower diversity was found in B. bigemina ITS isolates. Conclusions: These data revealed the current distribution of B. bovis and B. bigemina infection in cattle in Indonesia. The rate of infection varied among sampling locations, cattle breeds and age groups. Furthermore, B. bovis ITS isolates from Indonesia were found to be more genetically diverse than B. bigemina ITS isolates. The data presented in this study are necessary to develop an effective strategy for controlling the disease in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few countries have been burdened with such great expectations as Indonesia and have failed to meet them in the ways expected. Economists have persistently predicted that Indonesia could be an economic giant in the region, challenging the state-led economies of Northeast Asia on the basis of free market policies. After the fall of Soeharto in 1998, pluralist political scientists saw Indonesia as a shining light for democratic transition. More recently, Indonesia has been hailed as a model for how democracy might work in a Muslim-majority country. Yet, we are still waiting for a new economic giant to emerge while democracy has not been able to resolve growing concentration of power and wealth in Indonesian society or to stem growing social resentment. Reactionary Islamic populism has often threatened Indonesia's reputation for religious moderation. Why have so many analysts had such great expectations of Indonesia and how have they explained the seeming disappointments? We propose that the institutions of markets and democracy are not a good starting point for explaining things. The problem lies in the way economic and social power is constructed and in the interests of powerful oligarchies that continue to dominate the political and economic landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

During the global commodities boom Indonesia, like many resource-rich countries, introduced an increasing number of nationalist policy interventions. However, the state has intervened assertively in some sectors and only passively in others. In Indonesia's mining sector, interventions that compel foreign divestment received widespread support from politicians and domestic industry; yet similar proposals to limit foreign investment in the strategic agribusiness sector have largely failed. This article brings the literature on resource nationalism into conversation with studies of business–state relations, in order to understand why nationalist mobilization met with more success in Indonesia's mining sector than in agribusiness. It argues that ownership structures constitute the source of this variation. Uniquely integrated patterns of domestic and foreign ownership in the strategic palm oil sub-sector constrained lawmakers’ nationalist agenda. Such constraints were less formidable in Indonesia's mining sector, where foreign capital is more easily differentiated, and concentrated in a sub-sector that contributes less overall to the Indonesian economy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A number of studies have examined emotional and belief responses following a disaster, yet there has been limited comparative analysis of responses to disasters in different places. This paper reviews the results of 366 questionnaires that evaluated key emotional and belief concepts in Haiti after the earthquake on 12 January 2010 (n=212) and in Indonesia after the earthquake in Yogyakarta on 27 May 2006 (n=154). The results indicate significant differences between the responses in the two settings, particularly in relation to feelings of impunity, self-blame for the disaster, regret about pre-earthquake behaviour, and a sense of justice in the world. Furthermore, the impacts of age, education, and gender on responses also were different in the two case study sites. Overall, the results suggest that understanding the cultural, religious, and social contexts of different disaster locales is important in comprehending the emotions and beliefs that manifest themselves in the wake of a major disaster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of palm oil prices on exchange rates in Malaysia and Indonesia using the Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS) model. The paper uses real monthly data from 1983:1 to 2015:5 and follows three estimation steps: (i) determination of the integrational properties of the data, (ii) testing for cointegration relationship through bounds testing method, and (iii) estimating the long run impact of real palm oil price, real crude oil price and real interest rate differential on real exchange rate. The finding indicates that real palm oil prices have significant negative effects on real exchange rate. While coefficient estimates differ for Malaysia and Indonesia, however, they tend to be around 0.2. In other words, a 10% increase in the real price of palm oil leads to appreciation of about 2% in the equilibrium exchange rate in Malaysia and Indonesia. The findings confirm that an increase in palm oil price leads to exchange rate appreciation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in the nature, scale, and speed of natural resource extraction, especially in the last two decades, have resulted in many new resource extraction areas emerging across the world. By zooming in on Indonesia, this article shows that the underlying causes and consequences of current trends are more complex than portrayed by the rancher-squatter model of frontiers that is still frequently used to explain these developments. We argue that a broadened frontier notion is necessary to address the multifaceted nature of the processes underway in contemporary Indonesian extraction areas, as well as beyond. We propose a perspective that pays explicit attention to four new developments that can be described by using the hybridization of space, time, actors, and rules, and are characterized by the fact that these processes create new perimeters in all four mentioned areas. In so doing, we challenge, broaden, and renew the meaning of frontiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We re-examine the presence of rational speculative bubbles in the Singaporean and Indonesian stock markets in light of contradictory results in the literature. We employ a mix of descriptive statistics, explosiveness tests and duration dependence tests for an expanded dataset from 1970 to 2013 that covers at least two suspected bubble episodes - the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis (AFC) and the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). We find bubble footprints in Singapore and Indonesia using descriptive statistics and explosiveness tests. However, we find no evidence of rational bubbles in Singapore using the duration dependence test. On the other hand, in Indonesia we find evidence of rational bubbles in weekly but not in monthly data. Our results indicate that the duration dependence test could be sensitive to data frequency suggesting that the duration dependence test results are not always conclusive and that it should be used in conjunction with other tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a large archipelago with significant geographical variation and economic diversity, Indonesia requires detailed regional information when subjected to economic modelling. While such information is available, it however has not been integrated and harmonised into a comprehensive input–output database, thus preventing economic, social, and environmental modelling for investigating sub-national regional policy questions. We present the newIndoLab, a collaborative research platform for Indonesia, enabling input–output modelling of economic, social, and environmental issues in a cloud-computing environment. Within the IndoLab researchers are for the first time able to generate a time series of regionally and sectorally detailed and comprehensive, sub-national multi-region input–output (MRIO) tables for Indonesia. By integrating a multitude of economic, social, and environmental data into a single standardised processing pipeline and harmonised data repository, the IndoLab is able to generate MRIO tables capturing up to 1148 sectors, and 495 cities and regencies. Researchers can freely choose from this detail to construct tables with customised classifications that suit their own research questions. First results from the IndoLab clearly demonstrate the unique characteristics of regions in terms of their sectors’ employment intensity. Thus, the IndoLab has great potential for investigating policy questions that cannot be comprehensively addressed using a single national database. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of the Indonesia Shariah-compliant Stock Index (ISSI) on the performance of included shares. In essence, the authors ask whether the establishment of the ISSI provides abnormal returns for the firms that are not included in the Jakarta Index.Design/methodology/approach The authors use an event study methodology to estimate cumulative abnormal returns in the days surrounding the event to examine the relationship between Shariah-compliant investments and stock returns. The estimation window of 90 trading days prior to the event (−30) to day 60 after (+60) is adopted. They also use a range of investment performance measures to provide new evidence on whether faith-based ethical investments generate superior performance compared to their unscreened benchmarks.Findings Using daily returns, the Indonesia ISSI and panel data model, the findings show that the inclusion of the ISSI has a positive impact on the financial performance of the included shares during the 41-day event window. The evidence also suggests that the ethical investment has a significant influence on the performance of stock market returns.Research limitations/implications This study offers insights to policymakers, investors and fund managers interested in the indices’ performance. A key conclusion that could be derived by bodies that regulate Islamic products and services is that investors are not only concerned about what is profitable but also what makes their investments ethical.Originality/value Although the global growth of the Islamic capital market products and services has been tremendous in recent years, very few studies focus on the Indonesian market and indeed, none of them devote sufficient attention to Shariah-compliant investments and stock returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how the creative economy discourse is interpreted and implemented in the context of Indonesia as a developing country. Our main conclusion is that the discourse is interpreted differently across localities. Bandung appears to be the only locality whose interpretation aligns with the general understanding of a creative economy that emphasises knowledge creation and innovation. This was made possible by the strong support from academia and communities who wanted to experiment with this policy idea. Our study also provides an insight into a creative economy developing not only as a discourse, but also as a workable framework for development policies, in this city. Conversely, other cities seem to pragmatically use the policy idea without considering the local context in a rebranding exercise in order to drive economic development, whereby traditional cultural industries are relabelled as creative despite performing hardly any innovation activities. Despite this, Bandung illustrates that there are possibilities for a developing country such as Indonesia to adopt the vision of a creative economy by reshaping local institutions to support successful experimentation with this new idea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its significance in household welfare, little is known about the capacity of intrahousehold risk sharing arrangements to insure consumption against major health shocks. Using rich health data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey, this study finds no evidence of full insurance against adult morbidity in rural Indonesia. In particular, the results show sizable and significant effects of adult morbidity on food consumption. They imply that, despite the recent health sector reforms of Indonesia, the health insurance system is not effective in shielding agricultural households against some severe and long lasting health shocks. (O12,I15) Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the role of fisherwomen in fishery resource management in Talaud Island District, North Sulawesi District, Indonesia. Several focus group discussions, interviews and questionnaires with fisherwomen and fishermen community as well as relevant stakeholders in Talaud Islands were conducted to collect data about the issue. The results of the research show that most of the fisherwomen in the particular area earn a living as collecting mussels, making and repairing nets, trading fish, and processing fish products. Trading and processing are the sub-sectors where women’s roles are over-represented which are low-grade unskilled jobs. However, the paper argues that the contribution of women in the fisheries sector has not been adequately reflected in policies and not yet transformed into women’s economic empowerment. The paper concludes that women’s roles and contribution to fishery family welfare and national development must be recognized by relevant government agencies and accomodated in national and local policies. These roles also should be transformed to women’s economic empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Economic globalisation has transformed the politics of realising the right to food. This article aims to discuss the extent to which competing as well as conjoined interests in agricultural modernisation reconfigure the right to food as actors, norms and practices change. Drawing upon the concept of interlegality, which considers dynamic perspectives of plural legal orders, the discussion focuses on, first, existing norms linked to the wider understanding of the right to food and, second, the interplay of interests supported by the state, corporations and civil society organisations. The Indonesian agricultural modernisation project in Papua is used as a case study. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The demand for urban river rehabilitation can be measured through stated preference surveys such as choice experiments, providing information on the welfare estimates of a particular approach. We deploy such a technique in the context of plans to rehabilitate a major river in Jakarta, Indonesia. The current plan focuses on widening and canalizing the downstream segment of the river within Jakarta’s administrative boundary. We hypothesize that residents would demand (and thus be willing to pay for) additional components of an ecological rehabilitation program in the form of riverside park space and upstream forest conservation outside of Jakarta’s jurisdiction. We develop a spatially-explicit discrete choice experiment in which households register their preferences for channel widening, park space, forest conservation, and a monthly fee to fund the rehabilitation. Using mixed logit models we find significant and substantial demand for both park space and forest conservation, with a lower bound on the total willingness to pay (WTP) of greater than US $4 million per year for park space and nearly US $6 million per year to support reforestation in the upper catchment. These estimates are based on households within the catchment, but we find that demand did not seem to decay with distance so the upper bound on total WTP could be substantially higher. We also find that household income level has a strong effect on marginal WTP for forest conservation, minimal effect on marginal WTP for park space, and that location along the river influenced WTP for park space and channel widening. This provides further evidence that there is substantial demand for river rehabilitation in developing world cities, and that choice experiments can provide information relevant to land use planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the literature on emission inequality is abundant, this study differentiates itself by focusing on emission inequality at the household-level. We further separate measures on emission inequality based on household characteristics as well as decompose it into sources of emission. The results show that as per capita expenditure increases, within group emission inequality tends to decline until the middle-income group but then further increase in expenditure worsens emission inequality. We also find that expenditure inequality is the predominant driver of emission inequality although recent increases in expenditure inequality have not lead to a commensurate increase in emission inequality. The decomposition of inequality based on emission sources suggests that energy-transportation predominantly contributes of the overall emission inequality; reducing the emission intensity of these sources would serve to lower emission inequality substantially. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been argued that the growth potential of industry clusters in developing countries is dependent on joint action to release external economy effects that otherwise remain latent. In this paper we report on the progress and impacts of a programme in Central Java to develop the capacity for joint action in industry clusters via economic forums in local government jurisdictions. We focus on the emerging relationships between industry clusters and their respective economic forums in four local government jurisdictions. Despite progress, the findings reveal the difficulties of developing new institutions to support joint action. These difficulties follow from the limits presented by the private sector dynamics underlying industry clusters and from variations in local government organisation, resourcing and understandings of the remit of these new institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years a debate has emerged about the conditions under which justiciable legal frameworks facilitate the fulfilment of socioeconomic rights. This debate has pitted institutionalist perspectives that emphasise the progressive potential of democratisation against structuralist perspectives that emphasise the constraints imposed by relationships of power and interest. This paper considers the debate in light of Indonesia’s recent experience. It suggests that we need to examine how institutional and structural factors interac twithin particular contexts to shape socioeconomic rights fulfilment, not examine these factors in isolation. It also considers the strategic implications of this argument for rights proponents. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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This article analyses the effectiveness of trade unions' electoral engagement in the union-dense electoral localities of Bekasi and Tangerang in Indonesia's 2009 legislative elections. Our analysis reveals that legacies of authoritarianism, electoral rules, and union fragmentation pushed unions to pursue an ineffective electoral strategy of running union cadres on various party tickets. In Bekasi, local leaders within the Federation of Indonesian Metalworkers Unions (FSPMI) chose not to mobilize resources to support union candidates because the union's national leadership had failed to convince them of the soundness of its strategy. In Tangerang, local leaders embraced the National Workers Union's (SPN) national electoral strategy, but had inadequate membership data to conduct electoral mapping and did not provide candidates with financial and leadership support. Neither union, meanwhile, gave much consideration to the problem of translating membership to votes: survey data reveal that most members could not name union candidates, and many of those who could did not vote for them. The article argues that, despite its flaws, trade unions' strategy of engagement in the electoral arena constitutes an important step forward in the consolidation of Indonesia's democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the relationships between the changes and continuities of Indonesian local politics and Chinese Indonesian business practices in the post-Suharto era, focusing on Chinese Indonesian businesses in two of the largest Indonesian cities, Medan and Surabaya. The fall of Suharto in May 1998 led to the opening up of a democratic and liberal space as well as the removal of many discriminatory measures against the Chinese minority. However, due to the absence of an effective, genuinely reformist party or political coalition, predatory political-business interests nurtured under Suharto’s New Order managed to capture the new political and economic regimes. As a result, corruption and internal mismanagement continue to plague the bureaucracy in the country and devolve from the central to the local governments. This article argues that this is due partially to the role some Chinese businesspeople have played in perpetuating corrupt business practices. As targets of extortion and corruption by bureaucratic officials and youth/crime organizations, Chinese businesspeople are not merely passive and powerless victims of corrupt practices. This article argues, through a combination of Anthony Giddens’s structure-agency theory as well as Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of habitus and field, that although Chinese businesspeople are constrained by the muddy and corrupt business environment, they have also played an active role in shaping such a business environment. They have thus played an active role in shaping local politics, which is infused with corruption and institutionalized gangsterism, as well as perpetuating their increasingly ambivalent position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This study aims to analyze IFIs’ stakeholders’ perception on Shariah harmonization for financial reporting standards inIndonesia as a part of the development effort of linking the emerging global Islamic banking to Indonesian financial and industrial markets. Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 160 respondents, who were stakeholders of Islamic banks, was taken from Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia and its surrounding major districts to examine the stakeholders’ perception on Shariah harmonization effort toward the implementation of a uniformed financial reporting standard for Islamic financial institutions. Data for this study were collected using a structured questionnaire. Findings – Through this study, the authors found several measures to be taken to ensure Shariah harmonization efforts in Indonesia such as deep understanding on the fatawā brought into practices and strict monitoring on the Islamic banks in applying the financial reporting standards that imply practicing the fatawā, both de jure and de facto. However, the respondents differ in their opinion on the possibility of Shariah harmonization, both de jure and de facto. The role of various actors involved in the financial reporting standardization may impede Shariah harmonization to take place. Research limitations/implications – The study is only looking at one case study, which is Indonesia. Therefore, future studies should consider more countries and significant number of respondents. Different research instruments to measure the perception can also be an interesting research exploration. In addition, adopting deep Islamic political economy of accounting theory may support better analysis on the issue of financial reporting standardization for Islamic financial institutions. Originality/value – This paper has practical significance for financial reporting standard setters for Islamic banks and policy-makers to understand the key behavioral and demographical dimensions of their stakeholders and using these dimensions to effectively position important aspects in financial reporting standards setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the preferences of entrepreneurs about formality and focuses on the role of gender. Relying on original data collected in Indonesia, we unpack the differences between various types of female entrepreneurs (currently in the informal sector) according to their preferences about formalization. Contrary to the existing literature, we find that female entrepreneurs possess highly nuanced preferences about formalization that are conditional on many factors. The preference for formalization is strongest among female entrepreneurs who are older, married, rural-based, and have recently started their firms. Our work contributes to research that seeks to better understand entrepreneurial preferences and the role that gender plays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the role of foreign aid in assisting development in two oil-rich countries: Indonesia and Nigeria. It seeks to understand the way foreign aid provided assistance to transform Indonesia from a ‘fragile’ state in the 1960s into one of the ‘Asian Tigers’ in the mid-1990s, and why it did not prevent Nigeria from falling into ‘African Tragedy’. The paper argues that foreign aid may help not only to finance development, but also to navigate policy makers’ policy choices. It shows how foreign aid may or may not help policy makers turn their policy preferences into action. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Critical writing on 'new town' developments on the edge of Asian cities emphasizes such negative effects as increased social segregation and exclusion, fragmentation of urban services, upward pressure on peri-urban land prices and loss of productive farmland. While not disputing such critical perspectives, this paper seeks to understand the position of one of Indonesia's pre-eminent developers and new town builders in the overall context of Indonesian development and the ongoing internationalization of real estate development in the region. The developer, known as Ciputra, has long been regarded as a pioneer in the development of Indonesia's real estate industry in general and new town development in particular. This paper examines how Ciputra's work as a developer intersects with the developmentalist goals and efforts of the Indonesian state and how many of these projects, which are commonly understood as exclusive enclaves, may be interpreted as a form of development which may be described as 'market modernism'. Pursuing this analysis, the paper then looks at Ciputra's efforts to internationalize this work and considers where it might fit with notions of national development elsewhere and how it may or may not engage with the transborder expansion of capitalist relations and the increasing commoditization of the Asian city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a critique of Hilmar Farid's (and to a lesser extent, Colm McNaughton's) contribution in this journal about the 1960s' anti-communist massacres, primitive accumulation and capitalist development in Indonesia. While agreeing that the massacres can be usefully tied to primitive accumulation it is argued that Farid's work displays some serious conceptual misunderstandings about the workings of capitalist development in Indonesia under the New Order as well as the social, political and economic underpinnings of that regime. As such, this paper finds that there are some major faults as well in his presentation of the logic of capitalist accumulation, the way it has been manifest historically in the Indonesian case and its role in the emergence of the New Order. Furthermore, the article suggests that a fundamental misreading may have been committed by Farid due to a fetish for New Order violence that hinders understanding of its political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bali's rice production is organised in units calledsubakwith compulsory membership for farmers who grow rice. The future of this highly productive system generating some of the highest yields across Indonesia is under threat. Urbanisation, rural diversification and tourism are encroaching on the immaculately groomed rice terraces, undermining a centuries-old sociocultural institution which, interwoven with kinship, neighbourhood and congregation groups, shapes Balinese society. Nonetheless, rice farming remains a vital source of income for many and rice the most important staple food. This predicament raises questions about the future of farmers' livelihoods, thesubak, its cultural heritage and rice production in Bali. The author contemplates possible trajectories by developing three scenarios: (1) disintegration; (2) formalisation; and (3) reinvention. The resulting structured narratives are not forecasts but may encourage discussion of the place and value of thesubakand local rice supply in the Balinese economy and society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A vociferous debate on socio-spatial formations is ongoing between those advocating a geography of scales and those advocating flat ontologies and assemblages, yet a middle ground has not been properly addressed. The author argues for an empirically driven, multidimensional assemblage approach whereby the processes constituting an assemblage and the different socio-spatial organisation of heterogeneous entities form the analytical basis for geographical analyses of particular empirical events. He shows how Norwegian companies in Indonesia encounter different stakeholders constituting a multidimensional (situated, scaled, and networked) ‘assemblage of national interests’ with multitudinous motivations and drivers but quite specific converged influence. He examines the territorialising forces employed during such encounters, the de-territorialising forces challenging the assemblage, and how the evolution of the ‘assemblage of national interests’ resulted in 2012 in the world's first law on corporate social responsibility (CSR), which has more or less forced Norwegian companies to make social investments in local communities within a CRS framing. The findings are that assemblages are scaled and networked, but also uncoordinated and ‘chaotic’. Norwegian companies in Indonesia are subject to a joint but dispersed, multidimensional assemblage of national interest, where stakeholders on different scales, with multiple motivations, mobilise to persuade them to run social investment programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the 2008-2010 Susenas panel data, this study examines expenditure inequality from spatial perspectives in Indonesia, using three decomposition methods: (i) a conventional Theil index decomposition; (ii) an alternative Theil index decomposition proposed by Elbers et al. (2008); and (iii) the Blinder− Oaxaca decomposition. Our results show that overall inequality in per capita expenditure increases between 2008 and 2010, which coincides with a rising trend in the official Gini coefficient. The contribution of inequality within urban and rural areas to total inequality is larger than that of inequality between urban and rural areas. Looking within urban and rural areas, urban inequality is significantly higher than rural inequality. Java- Bali in particular records very high urban inequality. Overall, urban inequality increases, urban-rural inequality remains stable, rural inequality decreases, and inequality at the national level increases. Although urban-rural inequality has a relatively low share in overall inequality, the share is not small enough to ignore its impact. Furthermore, when using the alternative decomposition method, the contribution of urban-rural inequality increases substantially. The present study also found that educational differences appear to have played an important role in expenditure inequality within urban areas and between urban and rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the context in which education in Aceh acts strategically to advance an agenda of social transformation. Applying a cultural, political economy analytical framework, it identifies ways in which education is embedded in key cultural, political, economic and social struggles at present. They include: (1) the redistribution of educational opportunities and access; (2) ambiguous spaces for democratic representation in a decentralised educational structure; (3) competing notions of how diversity is acknowledged within Indonesia and Aceh Province; and (4) conflicted approaches to reconstruction following the 2004 tsunami and end of conflict in 2005. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indonesia is a net importer of almost all of its staple foods. National self-sufficiency in food, especially the main staple, rice, is a core objective of economic policy. Poverty reduction is also a core policy objective. Since the 1970s, Indonesia has used agricultural input subsidies, especially on fertilizer, to stimulate agricultural production, largely in pursuit of the goal of rice self-sufficiency. More recently, it has also used output protection, especially in rice, for the same purpose. This article utilizes a multisectoral, multihousehold general equilibrium model of the Indonesian economy to study the trade-offs between the goals of self-sufficiency and poverty reduction when two alternative means are used to achieve them: a fertilizer subsidy, on the one hand, and output protection, on the other. It does this by analyzing the aggregate and distributional effects of these two sets of policies and by comparing their effects with nonintervention. The analysis shows that, in terms of its effects on poverty, a fertilizer subsidy can be a more effective instrument for achieving the goal of rice self-sufficiency than final product import restrictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A reality that cannot be denied that the laws of Indonesia applicable today, especially regarding international trade transactions, are less conducive to the changes. This can be understood because the law that in fact is a legacy of the Dutch colonial government has not been changed at all, but the dynamics of the community continue to run endlessly. Changes in society increasingly run quickly along with the progress achieved in the field of Science and Technology, particularly Information and Communication. Such an objective conditions will in turn lead to new legal issues in the community, namely the absence of law and the emergence of the legal gap between what the law in book with what the law in action. The increasingly complex legal issues in related to be the establishment of an ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) of 2015. The theory used to analyze is the Jeremy Bentham's Legislation Theory and the Theory of Legal Development from Mochtar Kusumaatmadja. While the research method applied is normative legal research methods with the statute, and conceptual approaches. The analysis shows that the convergence paradigm namely universalistic particularism is appropriate used in law reform in Indonesia. In addition, in order to provide a clear direction of Indonesian economic law reform efforts in the context of the establishment of 2015 AEC, it is necessary to establish the Indonesian Economic System in the national legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although this paper challenges the standard viewpoint that foreign direct investment actually occurred in colonial times it also finds parallels with today’s international finance. Evidence shows that the reverse flow of funds was infinitely much greater than possible foreign investment for at least one colony, the Netherlands East Indies (colonial Indonesia). We calculate for the late colonial period (1880–1939) out of its total colonial surplus at least US$430 billion in today’s terms (about three-quarters of the total) was available for investment. This was far in excess of actual investment. Less than one-third of the available for investment went to colonial Indonesia and a further one-third was invested in other countries. The remainder is attributed to investment in the Netherlands (mainly portfolio), investment by non-Dutch corporations and to some statistical errors and omissions. Furthermore, we indicate their actual vital function within the global economic and financial organisation of the Netherlands in late colonial times. The probability of similar occurrences today is raised. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Spikes in international food prices in 2007-2008 worsened poverty incidence in Indonesia, both rural and urban, but only by small amounts. The paper reaches this conclusion using a multisectoral and multihousehold general equilibrium model of the Indonesian economy. The negative effect on poor consumers, operating through their living costs, outweighed the positive effect on poor farmers, operating through their incomes. Indonesia's post-2004 rice import restrictions shielded its internal rice market from the temporary world price increases, muting the increase in poverty. But it did this only by imposing large and permanent increases in both domestic rice prices and poverty incidence. Poverty incidence increased more among rural than urban people, even though higher agricultural prices mean higher incomes for many of the rural poor. Gains to poor farmers were outweighed by the losses incurred by the large number of rural poor who are net buyers of food, and the fact that food represents a large share of their total budgets, even larger on average than for the urban poor. The main beneficiaries of higher food prices are not the rural poor, but the owners of agricultural land and capital, many of whom are urban based. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The potential ofoil palm agribusiness for socio-economic development in Indonesia remains a matter of debate. There are important differences between the government's representation of oil palm agribusiness as a panacea for the problems of development and the realities of this economic system as manifested on the ground. The analysis of land acquisition practices and labour regimes in an oil palm smallholding scheme in West Kalimantan brings flesh understanding to this debate. Diverse forms of socio-economic differentiation substantiate the need for nuanced representation of the role of oil palm agribusiness for development and suggest an approach to realistic understanding of its potential for development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]