Sumitro launches a new book

Sumitro launches a new book

Perkembangan Pemikiran Ekonomi: Dasar Teori Ekonomi Pertumbuhan
dan Ekonomi Pembangunan.
By Sumitro Djojohadikusumo
Publisher: LP3ES, 422 pages, 1994.

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia's most senior and respected economist,
77-year old Sumitro Djojohadikusumo, is known as an outspoken
analyst. He does not mince words when a particular situation or
development requires him to prescribe caution.

But Sumitro deserves one more superlative term: the most
productive writer of economics papers and books in Indonesia.

He just came out with a new book entitled Perkembangan Pemikiran
Ekonomi: Dasar Teori Ekonomi Pertumbuhan dan Ekonomi Pembangunan( The
Evolution of Economic Thoughts: Theoretical Premises of Growth
Economics and Development Economics).

What makes the 422-page book much more interesting and broader in
scope than simply a textbook is that it offers an unusual blend of
theories, practices, historical perspectives and analyses in a
societal framework and even prescribes major policy
recommendations.

That combination makes the book highly valuable for students
and everybody else interested in the paradigms of development
economics and growth economics and how those thoughts were
reflected in Indonesia's economic development over the past 25
years and how they will influence the next 25 years.

The ideas that formed development economics emerged in the
1940s and commanded both great intellectual excitement and
prestige while attracting creative minds in the 1950s. But, as
Sumitro asserts in his introduction, there has not been any
general theory on development economics.

There have indeed been extensive works on the economics of developing
countries-- since after all, development economics emphasizes the
economics of underdevelopment. But though some of the problems
studied or identified are essentially generic to all countries,
there are many issues uniquely characteristic of poorer
countries.

Sumitro himself discussed the thoughts on development
economics in his Ekonomi Pembangunan (Development Economics) book
which was published in 1950. His new book thus revisits
development economics, pinpointing new thoughts nurtured by
development theorists.

Quick journey

The first four chapters of the book provide a quick journey
back to classical theories on economic evolution and various
theoretical approaches to development economics.

These chapters feature almost all the noted development
theorists and synthesize the paradigms that contributed to
development economics and growth economics. Just to mention
several of them: Roy F. Harrod and Evsey D. Domar, Nicholas-
Kaldor, Simon Kuznets, Robert M.Solow, Rosenstein-Rodan with his
Big-Push theory, Albert Hirschman,

Obviously all the theories and paradigms can not be covered
with sufficient analytical clarity, so chapter two on growth
theories is supplemented with an appendix featuring the Harrod,
Domar, Solow and Kaldor-style growth models.

The theoretical approaches to development economics are
analyzed against Indonesian economic development during the 1969-
1993 period, usually called the First Phase of Long-Term
Development in chapter five. This chapter provides an in depth
profile of the process, problems, achievements and challenges of
Indonesian economic development. It is rich with tables on key
economic indicators and is therefore a highly valuable reference.

What makes this chapter even more interesting is that it also
projects the main challenges or agenda of economic development
during the next 25 years (Second Phase of Long-Term Development)
and provides policy recommendations which, according to Sumitro,
are essential to achieve the targets.

This chapter once again amplifies Sumitro's great concern,
expressed on various occasions through speeches or papers, with
the factors of high cost economy, structural disparities and
imbalances with regard to resource endowment, allocation of
productive resources, the distribution of wealth and income and
the prevailing institutional framework.

The discussion of development economics is made even more
cohesive and coherent in the last four chapters by the analyses
on human resources, science and technology, natural resources and
the impact of development on the environment.

Sumitro humbly states in his introduction that the book was
designed to be a basic guideline to help students and others gain
deeper insight into the thoughts underlying the approaches to the
problems of growth and development.

That is quite an understatement.

The book is so complete with economic thought, practices and
policy recommendations that it could strongly influence the next
generation of Indonesian economists.

Sumitro refuses to be called an architect of Indonesian
economic policy despite his several tenures in the cabinet and
his widely quoted analysis of economic issues.

He claims, though, to carry some of the building materials for
the country's economic policy architects. His new book, I think,
could become another building block for the architects of
Indonesian economic development.

-- Vincent Lingga