Book Reviews

W.T. Woo, B. Glassburner and Anwar Nasution, Macroeconomic Policies, Crises, and Long-term Growth in Indonesia, 1965–90, Comparative Economic Studies, The World Bank, Washington DC, 1994, pp. xiii + 216. Paper: $13.95.

Hal Hill (ed.), Indonesia's New Order; The Dynamics of Socio-Economic Transformation, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1994, pp. xxxv + 364. Paper: A$29.95.

J. Thomas Lindblad (ed.), New Challenges in the Modern Economic History of Indonesia: Proceedings of the First Conference on Indonesia 's Modern Economic History, Jakarta, October 1–4, 1991, Programme of Indonesian Studies, Leiden University, Leiden, 1993, pp. viii + 306.

Thee Kian Wie, Explorations in Indonesia's Economic History, Lembaga Penerbit Fakultas Ekonomi Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta, 1994, pp. xv + 187.

Nancy Lee Peluso, Rich Forests, Poor People: Resource Control and Resistance in Java, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1992, pp. xv + 321.

Effendi Pasandaran, Agus Pakpahan, Edwin B. Oyer and Norman Uphoff (eds), Poverty Alleviation with Sustainable Agricultural and Rural Development in Indonesia, Published jointly by the Center for Agro-Socioeconomic Research (CASER) (Bogor), and the Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development (CIIFAD) (Ithaca), Bogor 1992, pp. vi + 233.

Eric Thorbecke and Theodore van der Pluijm, Rural Indonesia: Socio-Economic Development in a Changing Environment, IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development) Studies in Rural Development no. 3, New York University Press, New York, 1993, pp. xxix + 360.

Niels Mulder, Inside Southeast Asia: Thai, Javanese and Filipino Interpretations of Everyday Life, Duang Kamol, Bangkok, 1992, pp. xiii + 178.

M.C. Ricklefs, War, Culture and Economy in Java, 1677–1726: Asian and European Imperialism in the Early Kartasura Period, ASAA Southeast Asia Publications Series no. 24, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1993, pp. xi + 425. A$29.95.

Ken Young, Islamic Peasants and the State: The 1908 Anti-Tax Rebellion in West Sumatra, Yale Southeast Asia Studies Monograph 40, Yale Center for International and Area Studies, New Haven, pp. xviii + 361.

Saya Shiraishi and Takashi Shiraishi (eds), The Japanese in Colonial Southeast Asia, Translation Series, Translation of Contemporary Japanese Scholarship on Southeast Asia, vol. 3, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, Ithaca, 1993, pp. 172.     

Technological Threat and Opportunity Assessment

One of the major challenges in the management of innovation is a practical and useful implementation of technology forecasting. This article proposes the concept of aniticpating the technological future, and that a structured approach to this concept could be an invaluable aid to technical decision-making. The notion of technological threat and opportunity assessment is presented as a useful framework for anticipating technological change. This notion is based on a dual approach.Firstly, a rapidly changing global technological landscape necessitates keeping track of technological developments. However, since we are dealing with innovation (rather than mere invention), the market implications are as important as the technological ones and have to be accounted for as such. Secondly, any organisation could be considered to be technology-based to some or other degree, implying that technologies have the ability to affect the bottom line of the organisation in some way. It is thus required to assess the business impact of such technologies, typically through a technology or innovation audit.Having assessed specific technological threats and opportunities facing the organisation, an innovation strategy needs to be developed in response to the identified threats and opportunities. Various possible offensive and/or defensive responses should be considered, culminating in the selection and implementation of an optimal strategy.     

Health benefits of tunneling through the Chinese environmental Kuznets curve (EKC)

In this paper, we first add to what is a growing literature on the existence and nature of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) model for developing countries, by testing for the existence of an EKC for China using a panel data set of city-specific, annual ambient levels of SO₂ pollution. We find some support for both the typical inverted-U-shaped relationship and an N-shaped, cubic configuration. More significantly, we then explore the possibility of China's “tunneling” through the EKC, by using newer, cleaner technologies, and thereby avoiding some of the environmental degradation that had often accompanied economic growth. Specifically, we estimate and economically value the health benefits realizable to Chinese cities from successful efforts to “tunnel” under the EKC over the next generation.     

Einzelbesprechungen

Ohne ZusammenfassungÜbersetzt von Gerhard Tintner, WienÜbersetzt von Ragnar Nurkse, z. Zt. Wienaus dem Italienischen übersetzt von Dr. Hans Fried, WienÜbersetzt von Paul Brüll, Wien.Aus dem Italienischen übersetzt von Dr. Hans Fried.     

The Effect of Subsidized Housing on Values of Adjacent Housing

This is a case study of the effect of subsidized housing on the value of adjacent non-subsidized housing. Four townhouse clusters in Fairfax County, Virginia, were selected for study because of the high degree of homogeneity between clusters. The clusters are all in the same community but vary in distance from subsidized housing. Sale prices were analyzed using a regression model which included distance from subsidized housing as an independent variable. Based on the results of the regression analysis, the authors conclude that the subsidized housing had a negative impact on the values of adjacent properties.     

AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF THE BSE SCARE

The economic aspects of the outbreak of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) in British cattle herds are investigated. On balance, a non-interventionist approach is most likely to be the least-cost method of dealing with the BSE problem, where costs include the risks of humans contracting Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD). There is no case for compensating farmers for the historic cost of building up infected herds.     

The effect of the 2007 ethanol mandate on downside risk in agriculture: evidence from Kansas farmers

The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 increased the amount of corn ethanol that must be blended into motor vehicle and other fuels as part of the renewable fuel standard. The purpose of this article is to look at how the increase in demand for corn influenced the profitability and downside risk of farms. We conducted this investigation using annual data for more than 300 farms in Kansas from 1997 through 2014. We find that the probability of a farmer’s experiencing a negative return on equity (i.e. the ‘downside risk’ of farming) decreased by 25 percentage points after 2007.