Our Expertise
Indonesia’s urban centers recently underwent an explosion of supermarkets. With cheaper, higher quality commodities and better services, supermarkets have the potential to drive traders in traditional markets out of business. In this paper, we evaluate whether this is indeed the case. We find that traditional traders experienced declines in their business.
Many people reminisce about or associate a certain period of their life with the price of rice at that particular time, especially when the rice price skyrocketed. The wife of a factory worker recollects: "Then, my husband's salary was hardly enough to buy 25kg of rice. How could we possibly survive?"
Investment in human capital is very crucial for the development of the country. One way to achieve this is through providing our children with sufficient education and welfare. This is not easy and not cheap! Much has been done to prevent our children from falling by the wayside, but there are still many obstacles and weaknesses to overcome. There is still much homework to be done.
Before the onset of the Asian financial crisis in 1997, the Indonesian economy was growing quickly; as a result, poverty fell significantly. Other welfare indicators, such as the infant mortality rate, the school enrolment rate and life expectancy at birth, were also showing improvements. The economic crisis that engulfed Indonesia in 1997–98 reversed these trends, resulting in a large increase in poverty in 1999.
Considerable media criticism has been directed recently at parliamentarians’ enthusiasm for costly overseas ‘working visits’ with little obvious benefit to the nation, and at their plans for a new parliamentary building. The criticism may not be fully justified, especially in relation to the latter, but is symptomatic of a high level of cynicism towards the parliament.
