Book Reviews

Jim Schiller and Barbara Martin-Schiller (eds), Imagining Indonesia: Cultural Politics and Political Culture, Ohio University Centre for International Studies, Monographs in International Studies, Southeast Asia Series no. 97, Athens, Ohio, 1997, pp. xxiii + 351. US$30.00; £28.50

Bisuk Siahaan, Industrialisasi di Indonesia sejak Hutang Kehormatan sampai Banting Stir [Industrialisation in Indonesia from the Debt of Honour to the Change in Course], Pustaka Data, Jakarta, 1996, pp. xiv + 563 npg

J.Th Lindblad (ed.), Historical Foundations of a National Economy in Indonesia, 1890s–1990s, North-Holland and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam, 1996, pp viii + 427. Dfl 95.‐.

Sven Cederroth, Survival and Profit in Rural Java: The Case of an East Javanese Village, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Monograph Series No 63, Curzon Press, Richmond, 1995, pp. xi + 301. npg.

R William Liddle, Leadership and Culture in Indonesian Politics, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, for ASAA Southeast Asia Publications Series, 1996. A$34.95.

Julius Tahija, Horizons Beyond, ‘Entrepreneurs of Asia’ series, Times Books International, Singapore, 1995, pp. xiii + 280. npg.

Mayling Oey-Gardiner, Mildred Wagemann, Evelyn Suleeman and Sulastri (eds), Perempuan Indonesia- Duht dan Kini [Indonesian Women: The Past and The Present], PT Gramcdia Pustaka Utama, Jakarta, 1996, pp. xvii + 477.

George Faulkner, Business Indonesia: A Practical Insight into Doing Business in Indonesia, Business. & Professional Publishing, Sydney, 1995, pp. xviii + 158.     

The Market for New Issues: Impact of Offering Price on Price Support and Underpricing

Previous studies have shown that the pattern of first day returns to initialpublic offerings is consistent with the hypotheses of underpricing and price support. We examine two different periods, 1975–1984 and 1996–2002, and find that in each case the measures of price support and underpricing are substantially affected by the initial public offerings' beginning price. During the period 1975–1984, the mean and standard deviation of returns to the price supported group are nearly always zero regardless of price, whileg the mean of the returns to the underpriced group is smile-shaped: high for low-priced and high-priced stocks but lower for stocks offered at intermediate prices. The patterns are different in the most recent data: the mean and standard deviation of both the price supported and underpriced groups are smile-shaped. For the lowest priced stocks, the measures in the later period mirror those for the 1975–1984 period, but for more expensive stocks the measures are substantially higher. The results apply to the first day returns of both firm commitment and best efforts offerings. Once price is taken into account, other than the difference in the probability of price support, the differences among offering types seem to be of secondary importance in explaining first day returns. JEL Classification: 1, G12, G24     

Technically the king can do wrong in reorganizing insolvent corporations: evidence from Canada

Taken together the international move from liquidation to reorganization‐based bankruptcy regimes and the international move to abolish Crown priority in bankruptcy provide Canada with an opportunity to rethink Crown priority in bankruptcy. This paper makes the case that abolishing Crown priority in bankruptcy in Canada is optimal given a revaluation of traditional normative claims surrounding Crown priority in the context of a bankruptcy system that favours reorganization when possible. While this paper focuses on Canada, it engages in a normative assessment that may be useful for possible reforms to Crown priority in the United States and in other jurisdictions that, like Canada, have been influenced, not only by the English model, but also by the American bankruptcy and reorganization system. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The risk management implications of using end of day consensus pricing for single name CDS

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - When markets are opaque, market participants rely to a large extent on end-of-day consensus prices published by service providers; such as in the...     

Optimizing joint production of timber and carbon sequestration of afforestation projects

Optimizing harvesting decisions has been a matter of concern in the forestry literature for centuries. However, in some tropical countries, growth models for fast-growing tree species have been developed only recently. Additionally, environmental services of forests gain importance and should be integrated in forest management decisions. We determine the impact of a joint production of timber and carbon sequestration on the optimal rotation of a fast-growing species in north-western Ecuador, comparing different optimization approaches and taking the latest developments of the Kyoto Protocol into account. We find that payments for carbon sequestration have substantial impact on the rotation length: in contrast to an optimum of 15 years when focusing on timber production only, joint production leads to a doubling of the rotation length, which means that timber harvest should be postponed until the end of the carbon project.