Book Reviews

Richard Robison, Indonesia: The Rise of Capital, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1986 pp. xxv + 425. Indexed. $19.95.

W.L. Korthals Altes, Changing Economy in Indonesia: Volume 7: Balance of Payments, 1822–1939, Amsterdam: The Royal Tropical Institute. pp. 167.

Trade Statistics, Java, 1823–73: Trade Statistics, Indonesia 1874–1937. Mededeelingen van het Centraal Kantoor voor de Statistiek nos 160 and 161

Om Prakash, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, 1630–1720, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985 pp. xii + 291, map, tables. graphs, glossary, index. Cloth $38.50.

Sediono M.P. Tjondronegoro, Social Organization and Planned Development in Rural Java, Singapore, Oxford University Press for the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1984, pp. xv + 326.

A. Fujimoto and F. Matsuda (eds), An Economic Study of Rice Farming in West Java, Tokyo: NODAI Research Institute, Tokyo, University of Agriculture, 1986.

A. Fujimoto and T. Matsuda (eds), A Comparative Study of the Structure of Rice Productivity and Rural Society in Southeast Asta Two Village Studies in Indonesta and Thailand, Tokyo: University of Agriculture, 1985. Reviewed by C.L J. van der Meer (1986) Bulletin of Indanesian Economic Studies, 22(2) pp. 124–27

David Jenkins, Suharto and His Generals: Indonesian Military Politics, 1975–1983, Ithaca: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, Monograph Series No. 64, 1984, pp. xiii + 280. US$12.50. David Bourchier, Dynamics of Dissent in Indonesia Sawito and the Phantom Coup, Ithaca: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, Interim Reports Series, 1984, pp. 128. US$9.00.

Linda G. Martin (ed), The ASEAN Success Story: Social, Economic, and Political Dimensions, East-West Center, distributed by the University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1987, pp. xviii + 253. $15.00.

Mubyarto and Edy Suandy Hamid (eds), Kredit Pedesaan di Indonesia, Badan Penerbit Fakultas Ekonomi, U.G.M., 1986 pp, 160.

Ron Hatley, et al., Other Javas Away from the Kraton, Melbourne: Monash University, 1984, pp. 60.

K.S. Nathan and M. Pathmanathan (eds), Trilateralism in Asia: Problems and Prospects in US-Japan-ASEAN Relations, Antara Book Company, Kuala Lumpur, 1986, pp. xviii + 205. $18.00 (cloth): $12.00 (paper).     

Informal group influence among situationally/dispositionally-oriented consumers

Consumer susceptibility to reference group influence has been demonstrated for certain products and buying situations. This article reports a study designed to determine if reference group influence varies between consumers classified as situationally-oriented and dispositionally-oriented. Results indicate a considerable difference between the two groups. Independence Health Plan     

Banks and the stability of the international financial system

Summary Does today's banking scene pose a potential threat to the stability of the international financial system? The article discusses three possible sources of vulnerability of the international banking system: a major bank failure causing a general banking crisis via the extensive interbank linkages; the systemic risks allegedly inherent in certain new (as well as traditional) financial products; and the impact of external events such as debt crises, violent swings in exchange or interest rates, deregulation and recession. The author's conclusion is twofold: systemic risks clearly exist, but the probability of a major banking crisis tends to be greatly exaggerated. Banks not only survived the various crises of the seventies and eighties; they also learned in the process. Capital and reserves have been strengthened, provisions for country risk and for general contingencies have increased, supervision has been tightened and it is exercised on a comprehensive as well as a world-wide consolidated basis (i.e. including all contingent and off-balance liabilities, and all offshore activities). Assuming reasonably intelligent policies on the part of the monetary authorities and adequate international coordination, a general banking crisis can be avoided. Official rescue operations do, however, raise difficult questions of an ethical, political and economic nature.     

Reduced Form Auctions Revisited

This note uses the Theorem of the Alternative to prove new results on the implementability of general, asymmetric auctions, and to provide simpler proofs of known results for symmetric auctions. The tradeoff is that type spaces are taken to be finite.     

Aid, Agriculture and Poverty in Developing Countries

The authors make two contributions to the debate on aid‐effectiveness, illustrating that for impact on poverty what matters is not just the level but also the composition and stability of aid. One specific implication of this for aid policy is that aid most effectively reduces poverty if it supports public (and other) expenditures which are supportive of agricultural development. Regression analysis confirms that these are not only direct expenditure on agriculture, but also on education and infrastructure, and military expenditure has a negative impact. Three factors appear to be particularly conducive to the development of stable pro‐poor expenditure patterns (and in particular pro‐agriculture expenditure patterns). These are expenditure strategies which protect the poor against risk, the development of stable relations between governments and aid donors, and long‐term political commitment to pro‐poor strategies by government. The argument is pursued partly by panel‐data econometric analysis of developing countries as a whole, and partly by case studies of sustained and non‐sustained green revolutions in heavily aid‐dependent countries in Africa.