Miscellaneous | Krisna 'imed' Gupta

The Role of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Trade and Investment

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0700

Melihat Indonesia lewat kacamata Ray Dalio: Bagaimana Negara Bankrut

Sat, 28 Jun 2025 12:06:59 +0700

About Ray Dalio’s Book

I just finished reading Ray Dalio’s book titled How Countries Go Broke, which illustrates how nations fall into debt crises. It starts with the premise that the United States is currently facing a massive debt problem, which Dalio sees as entering the final stage of what he calls “The Big Debt Cycle.” This debt problem is driven not only by budget deficits but also by interest rates and inflation—which have remained super low since the 2000s—making debt easy to roll over. Because interest rates were kept so low, the U.S. (and other advanced economies) got too relaxed and addicted to borrowing. But after COVID-19, interest rates in developed countries started rising again, forcing the U.S. to reconsider how sustainable its debt truly is.

Economists like Kenneth Rogoff have already raised concerns about U.S. debt—and so has Ray Dalio, I think. But at a time when low inflation was seen as a bigger problem than high inflation, the debt kept piling up.

I saw a similar way of thinking in Australia, where they’ve been running a current account deficit for over 30 years without any crisis. My macroeconomics lecturer, , once said this might be risky, but at the time people in Australia weren’t too worried. Timo taught me that we need to be cautious about debt that looks easy on the surface. Politicians tend to make it worse, because increasing spending is how you win elections. That’s why debt discipline only kicks in when it’s already too late.

So has the U.S. left it too late? According to Ray Dalio, not yet. The U.S. can still do what he calls “beautiful deleveraging”—reducing debt in a painless way. That can be done by raising taxes, cutting government spending, and lowering interest rates at the same time. In other words, he believes it’s still doable. But if these steps aren’t taken, the U.S. could face an even worse debt crisis.

The problem is that today’s situation is tangled up with high political uncertainty, both domestically and geopolitically. On top of that, natural issues like the climate crisis and the uncertain effects of technology on the economy make things even more complex. Yup, in his book, Ray also talks about non-debt issues like geopolitical tension and climate-driven risks.

For me, the principle of debt sustainability that Ray Dalio presents isn’t exactly new. Timo had already covered it in his lectures. Even the concept of “beautiful deleveraging” is actually quite standard: it’s when governments and central banks work together—governments reduce debt (by trimming budgets a little and raising taxes) while central banks help out by lowering interest rates. But the way Dalio explains it is so simple and fluid—it’s like the “baby talk” version of macroeconomics class.

I think Ray Dalio is a great example of someone who learned macroeconomics the self-taught way. He’s obviously talked to many macro experts and has hands-on experience as a global investor, which means he had to understand the macroeconomic conditions of all the countries in his portfolio. I really appreciated the examples he gave—of which countries succeeded at beautiful deleveraging and which ones didn’t—it showed how much he’s learned from experience.

Applying Ray Dalio’s Indicators

In the book, he shares some indicators and example calculations to assess a country’s debt stability. One of them is the debt-to-income ratio (he says debt-to-GDP can be misleading). You can also use growth-adjusted versions to estimate the present value of debt. Overall, the indicators he uses are actually quite mainstream for investors analyzing economic fundamentals¹.

I tried looking at these indicators too, but went with the easy route—just used historical data without projecting into the future like Dalio did in the book. Mostly because, well… laziness 😆. I used historical data from the IMF dataset Public Finances in Modern History² (which you can ). Since the data layout is kind of messy, I manually merged it in Excel. This dataset contains indicators like:

Code	Description
prim	Primary government spending (% of GDP)
rev	Government revenue (% of GDP)
exp	Government expenditure (% of GDP)
ie	Interest paid on public debt (% of GDP)
pb	Government primary balance (% of GDP)
d	Gross public debt (% of GDP)
rltir	Real long-term gov bond yield (%)
rgc	Real GDP growth rate (%)

Let’s just stick to the basics. First is the debt-to-income ratio. In the table above, debt-to-GDP is labeled “d” and government revenue-to-GDP is labeled “rev”. So to get the debt-to-income ratio, just divide “d” by “rev”—GDP cancels out because it’s in both the numerator and the denominator.

Next, I’ll look at the difference between the interest rate on public debt and the GDP growth rate. If the interest you pay is higher than your revenue growth, then over time, debt becomes more expensive and potentially unsustainable. Now, we’re assuming that as GDP grows, a country’s revenue-raising capacity grows as well—so I’m using GDP growth as a proxy for revenue growth. A bit rough, but still helpful.

Let’s start by looking at the ratio of debt to government income. We’ve got the U.S. and Indonesia in the dataset, as well as Japan, Argentina, and Turkey—three countries that are kind of legendary when it comes to debt crises 😂.

We’re pretty familiar with the 1998 Asian financial crisis that hit Indonesia hard. You can see that Indonesia’s debt-to-income ratio peaked in 1999, when the country’s total debt was 6.7 times its revenue. That’s still better than Argentina, which went through two major in 1989 and 2002. Spikes like these are common during crises, when governments ramp up borrowing to stabilize the economy while revenues drop. And yep, there’s a visible spike for all countries in 2020 due to the pandemic.

But for the U.S. and Japan, the debt-to-income ratio has kept rising steadily since their respective crisis moments—Japan since around 1990, and both countries since the 2008 global financial crisis. At this point, it’s no longer a spike—it’s a long-term climb. That’s one of the strengths of issuing debt in your own currency, especially when most of the buyers are your own citizens. In cases like that, the debt ends up being supported by the central bank.

According to Ray Dalio, both the U.S. and Japan have reached what he calls Monetary Policy 3 (MP3): this is when the central bank starts buying government bonds to lower interest rates. That’s what keeps their borrowing costs down and allows debt levels to keep rising. To keep private sector balance sheets healthy, governments (and their central banks) have to sacrifice their own balance sheets. Oh, and by the way—looks like Argentina might be heading for another spike and could . Wild.

It looks like Indonesia’s ratio started climbing again around 2015 (gee, wonder who was in charge then 👀). But after 2020, the trend seems to be improving, mainly because the primary balance has started shrinking. Primary balance, by the way, is the difference between government revenue and spending excluding interest payments. A negative figure means the government is spending more (on things that drive consumption and investment) than it earns—before even factoring in interest payments.

In other words, a negative primary balance means the government is in expansion mode. A positive value, on the other hand, means revenue has actually surpassed spending. Still, overall there’s a deficit because debt payments need to be covered. Interestingly, in 2023 Indonesia’s primary balance started to turn positive—this means more of the deficit is now being used to repay or roll over debt.

By the way, we can see this low spending trend in the chart below, which shows primary expenditure—that is, total government spending minus interest payments. In other words, this chart reflects the government spending that actually fuels $G$ (government demand). From this, we can see that Indonesia’s debt has remained relatively manageable because government spending itself is relatively low.

What’s more, since the COVID period, the portion of government spending used for actual government consumption (excluding interest payments) has been gradually declining as a share of GDP. This signals that the government has been scaling back its spending—at least in relative terms.

Lastly, looking at the growth-minus-yield figure below, things still seem relatively okay. Indonesia is a country with high bond yields, but its economic growth is also pretty strong. That said, the issues of taxation and ICOR (Incremental Capital Output Ratio) still need serious attention if we want to avoid falling into the trap of unsustainable debt.

TL;DR

In summary, Indonesia still seems to be doing okay in terms of macroprudence—especially when compared to other countries. We issue most of our debt in our own currency (which can be backed by the central bank), which gives us a bit more flexibility. That said, we have to be cautious when comparing ourselves to countries like Japan or the U.S., because they’re in a category of their own. For Japan, we obviously don’t want to end up stuck in a negative interest rate spiral like they did. Investors pulled out, the currency kept depreciating, and young people there ended up in pretty bleak situations. The U.S.? Well, they literally print dollars. Although the dollar’s influence is slowly fading… so, not exactly a perfect scenario for them either.

Indonesia is generally praised for its macroprudence, even though the real sector of the economy is still kind of problematic. We’ve been keeping debt at around 3% of GDP each year—something Ray Dalio also recommends in his book. Our central bank is still holding strong, with foreign exchange reserves currently at an all-time high. As long as we maintain stronger macroprudence than our neighbors, Indonesia will likely remain an attractive place to park money.

Even though our indicators still look solid, we should be mindful of the signs of economic collapse that Ray Dalio talks about. For instance, he mentions that rising authoritarianism is often a red flag for countries heading toward bankruptcy. Then there’s the continuation of monetary policy into “MP3 territory” (meaning both public and private debt ends up being bought by the central bank). And investments that don’t lead to higher productivity? Definitely a red flag too.

About that central bank debt-buying cycle—Ray Dalio outlines a clear pattern in his book. First, the private sector collapses due to reckless debt management (say, construction or aviation firms playing fast and loose with money). Then the government steps in to rescue them—offering contracts or injecting capital. Where does the money come from? More debt. And when no one wants to lend anymore, the central bank swoops in to buy the government bonds in order to keep interest rates from spiking. So the sequence goes: private sector → government → central bank. Eventually, this can go hand-in-hand with a country turning to capital controls.

The real question is: have we reached that stage yet?

Who's buying Indonesia's government bonds? pic.twitter.com/DYR8RKy9ZC
— 🐦 (@dionbisara) March 19, 2025

Alright, that’s all for now. Hopefully, we’ll always stay in good shape, economically and otherwise. Don’t forget to mention me on X if you want to chat further.

Economists—especially macroeconomists—often argue that indicators used for individual firms don’t really apply to countries. That’s not entirely wrong, but I’ll set that aside for now so this blog post doesn’t go off the rails. ↩︎
Mauro, P., Romeu, R., Binder, A., & Zaman, A. (2015). A modern history of fiscal prudence and profligacy. Journal of Monetary Economics, 76, 55–70. ↩︎

Issues in Indonesia's State Budget

Fri, 09 May 2025 09:00:00 +0700

Trump Tariffs and Indonesia's Automotive Industry

Wed, 07 May 2025 13:30:00 +0700

Indonesian consumption growth, labor share, and saving rate

Sun, 23 Mar 2025 12:06:59 +0700

Recently, there have been many reports about the weakening of Indonesia’s middle class. The middle class in Indonesia has been shrinking since 2018 and now makes up only 17% of the total population. However, consumption growth often relies on the middle class. Unsurprisingly, Indonesia’s consumption growth has long lagged behind that of other countries in the region, except Thailand.

Indonesia’s consumption growth has been below the general pace of economic growth for quite some time. How is it possible for economic growth to outpace consumption growth?

One explanation is that this economic growth benefits those with a low consumption share. Consumption share refers to the portion of an individual’s income spent on consumption. Typically, this group consists of wealthy individuals or corporations. These entities already have high consumption levels. Any additional income is more likely to be allocated toward increasing assets (savings) or spending abroad. I previously discussed this issue in The Conversation Indonesia.

I will attempt to explore this theory by presenting two points: (1) Indonesia’s saving rate is increasing, and (2) the labor share is decreasing. I illustrate these two points using data from Total Economy - Integrated Institutional Sector Accounts (trillion rupiahs), 2016 - 2023 from BPS. This balance sheet is a very useful and interesting dataset as it includes calculations from all three methods of calculating Gross Domestic Product (GDP). I have made slight adjustments to the data, which can be viewed at the end of this post.

Increasing Saving Rate

The saving rate reflects the proportion of income saved by the population. A high saving rate indicates that people save more than they spend on consumption. As discussed above, the economic balance sheet does not differentiate the owners of the saving rate, but a significant increase in the saving rate typically signals a rising income share among groups more likely to save, such as wealthy individuals or corporations.

import seaborn as sns
import matplotlib as plt
import pandas as pd

data=pd.read_excel("neraca.xlsx",sheet_name="Sheet3")
dat=data[["tahun","LS","KS"]]
dat=dat.melt("tahun",var_name="jenis",value_name="nilai")
det=data[["tahun","srhh"]]

ax=sns.lineplot(data=det,x="tahun",y="srhh")
ax.set(xlabel="",ylabel="(%)",title="Saving rate (i.e., disposable income minus consumption),\nfrom Neraca Ekonomi BPS")

[Text(0.5, 0, ''),
Text(0, 0.5, '(%)'),
Text(0.5, 1.0, 'Saving rate (i.e., disposable income minus consumption),\nfrom Neraca Ekonomi BPS')]

Since 2016, Indonesia’s saving rate has continued to increase. COVID-19 forced everyone to reduce their savings, even increasing debt to maintain consumption. However, since then, the saving rate has risen again, even higher than usual. It seems that COVID-19 really dealt a blow to Indonesian consumers.

Some analysts say that one of the problems is weak wage growth. Reed, Pasha, and Gonzales, in their report for the World Bank Group, wrote about weak wage growth and profits in manufacturing companies with high foreign ownership. The image excerpt below is from the report.

In the economic balance sheet, we can also calculate how much primary income is allocated for various purposes. I divide it into three: taxes, employee expenses, and profits. Profits consist of income that has already been reduced by taxes and employee expenses. I’ve plotted this below, but I excluded taxes as the amount is very small, around 5% of the total balance sheet¹.

ax=sns.lineplot(data=dat,x="tahun",y="nilai",hue="jenis",palette="tab10")
ax.set(xlabel="",ylabel="(%)",title="Labor share (LS) and profit share (KS) of income, from Neraca Ekonomi BPS")

[Text(0.5, 0, ''),
Text(0, 0.5, '(%)'),
Text(0.5, 1.0, 'Labor share (LS) and profit share (KS) of income, from Neraca Ekonomi BPS')]

And it’s quite apparent that there has been progressive growth in the share of income absorbed by companies. As hypothesized above, an increase in the income share for companies is more likely to be saved, while an increase in the income share for employees is more likely to be consumed. So, at least based on this result, it makes sense.

Anyway, this post is actually just to share the chart. We can have a discussion outside of this post. Let me know what you think.

Below is the data I used. All of it was downloaded from Total Economy - Integrated Institutional Sector Accounts (trillion rupiahs), 2016 - 2023 with slight adjustments.

data

	tahun	L	K	T	va/output	LS	TS	KS	srhh
0	2016	40.576885	55.127270	4.295845	52.877975	41.728750	4.435895	53.835356	30.864658
1	2017	41.472019	53.934836	4.593145	53.108782	42.704020	4.746633	52.549347	31.795110
2	2018	39.977940	55.237447	4.784614	52.986106	41.343331	4.965863	53.690807	32.159447
3	2019	39.252272	55.950651	4.797077	52.971298	40.403369	4.954449	54.642181	31.793236
4	2020	37.304707	58.410155	4.285138	53.170697	38.341668	4.418889	57.239443	30.021169
5	2021	37.283856	58.021987	4.694157	53.484228	38.272325	4.833429	56.894245	33.807914
6	2022	35.453018	59.557783	4.989199	53.799988	36.094115	5.095040	58.810845	38.504459
7	2023	34.970118	60.019108	5.010774	53.400921	36.068580	5.184493	58.746927	36.506632

This 5% figure is quite interesting because Indonesia’s corporate income tax rate is much higher than that. This could make for an entire post on its own—maybe another time. ↩︎

Checking BPS open unemployment rate data

Sat, 18 Jan 2025 14:06:59 +1100

Some time ago, my colleague Anton and I were invited to chat on the Indah G Show platform. It was a casual, mostly spontaneous conversation. Unfortunately, in these impromptu settings, I often don’t have data memorized, and there’s no opportunity to check data – or at least doing so would break the flow. Quite different from chatting on Twitter, which is asynchronous.

One such moment was when we were discussing the unemployment rate. At the time (the recording was around October or November 2024), news about deflation and unemployment was widespread, and many were claiming unemployment was high. I said that the unemployment rate at the time probably wasn’t that different from previous periods. I also mentioned that unemployment rates can vary by region. Unfortunately, checking provincial unemployment figures takes a bit of time.

Now it’s time to check the data. I claimed that unemployment was probably not higher than usual in 2024, and that it could be high in Aceh but low in Jakarta, so it’s not so bad (or at least not worse than typical).

I use the open unemployment rate by province table from BPS. BPS uses the Sakernas survey conducted in two different months: February and August. I plot the last 10 years, separately for February and August. I select a few provinces: Aceh and Jakarta (since I mentioned these on the podcast), plus Yogyakarta, Bali, and North Maluku (no particular reason). The data is shown below.

import seaborn as sns
import matplotlib as plt
import pandas as pd

data=pd.read_excel("ur.xlsx")
feb=data.query("bulan=='Februari'")
aug=data.query("bulan=='Agustus'")

ax=sns.lineplot(data=feb,x="tahun",y="ur",hue='daerah',palette='Paired')
sns.move_legend(ax,loc='lower right',bbox_to_anchor=(1.35,.5))
ax.set(xlabel="",ylabel="Unemployment rate (%)",title="Annual unemployment rate, February")

[Text(0.5, 0, ''),
Text(0, 0.5, 'Unemployment rate (%)'),
Text(0.5, 1.0, 'Annual unemployment rate, February')]

ax=sns.lineplot(data=aug,x="tahun",y="ur",hue='daerah',palette='Paired')
sns.move_legend(ax,loc='lower right',bbox_to_anchor=(1.35,.5))
ax.set(xlabel="",ylabel="Unemployment rate (%)",title="Annual unemployment rate, August")

[Text(0.5, 0, ''),
Text(0, 0.5, 'Unemployment rate (%)'),
Text(0.5, 1.0, 'Annual unemployment rate, August')]

Obviously, 2020 saw the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused unemployment rates to spike. Bali and Jakarta experienced far worse problems than other regions and the national average (red line), which makes sense given that both are highly service-oriented economies.

Overall, we can see that by August and February 2024, unemployment rates had largely returned to the pre-pandemic trend. Moreover, Jakarta has historically had a high unemployment rate – above the national average – just like Aceh. In fact, Jakarta’s unemployment rate is often higher than Aceh’s.

In short:

(1) the unemployment rate is probably not as bad as the news suggests, since it’s approaching the 10-year trend and has generally been improving since the COVID disruption. (2) Jakarta has an unemployment rate comparable to Aceh’s, and both are above the national average.

It’s also important to note that the unemployment rate alone is insufficient for labor market analysis, as many other indicators need to be considered. First, it’s important to know the labor force size, which can rise due to various factors (e.g., people who normally continue to university decide not to, thus entering the labor force), or even fall (people become so desperate about finding work that they give up and exit the labor force). Then there are hours worked (BPS defines someone as employed if they work at least 1 hour per week, so someone could be working but with reduced hours, indicating a weak labor market). And most importantly, the wages paid for those hours. I previously discussed the potential impact of minimum wages on the labor market here.

In other words, it’s quite possible that the unemployment rate hasn’t changed much, but what’s actually happening is a reduction in hours worked or wages. This is like when snack prices stay the same but the contents shrink.

Analyzing the labor market is not straightforward, which is why even among economists, labor economics is a whole specialization. Hopefully this helps you be more critical when you see these numbers going forward.

By the way, BPS has started disseminating more wage data – a very welcome development. Here’s one example of wage data on the BPS website. Also be careful looking at averages, since averages will be skewed and inflated by high earners, to some degree.

Hope this post helps clarify things.

## This is a copilot generated code.
import pandas as pd
from io import StringIO

# Tab-delimited data
data = """daerah\t2015\t2016\t2017\t2018\t2019\t2020\t2021\t2022\t2023
ACEH\t11226\t13627\t14809\t13814\t15065\t18099\t17037\t16772\t17585
DKI JAKARTA\t17012\t23181\t23826\t25238\t25236\t28420\t30662\t32685\t42354
DI YOGYAKARTA\t10440\t12070\t12281\t12554\t13275\t15771\t15098\t14916\t16478
BALI\t11038\t14852\t15624\t15889\t16408\t17775\t17662\t16857\t18521
MALUKU UTARA\t13607\t15226\t15760\t15864\t17425\t23338\t21131\t18278\t27078
INDONESIA\t11434\t14068\t14731\t15275\t15823\t17696\t18089\t17542\t19027"""

# Use StringIO to read the string data into a pandas dataframe
df = pd.read_csv(StringIO(data), delimiter='\t')
df_long = pd.melt(df, id_vars=['daerah'], var_name='year', value_name='value')

## Seaborn
ax=sns.lineplot(data=df_long,x="year",y="value",hue='daerah',palette='Paired')
sns.move_legend(ax,loc='lower right',bbox_to_anchor=(1.35,.5))
ax.set(xlabel="",ylabel="Rp",title="Hourly wage by province, Rupiah/hour")

[Text(0.5, 0, ''),
Text(0, 0.5, 'Rp'),
Text(0.5, 1.0, 'Hourly wage by province, Rupiah/hour')]

Indonesia's Declining Middle Class: A Warning Sign?

Wed, 18 Sep 2024 14:00:00 +1100

I was invited by The Conversation Indonesia to discuss the declining middle class trend. We discussed why this is happening and how significant the implications are for Indonesia’s economy. Personally, I believe the declining middle class trend should serve as an alarm for all of us.

Safe and Comfortable in the Workplace

Tue, 17 Sep 2024 14:00:00 +1100

Unbundlling, GVC and TiVA

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 09:00:00 +0700

Mearsheimer's realism principles: compatible with economics?

Sat, 10 Aug 2024 15:02:49 +0700

Mearsheimer’s Realism Principles

I already posted about John Mearsheimer’s realism in a previous post. This time I want to discuss Professor Mearsheimer’s realism theory more explicitly. In this video, he explicitly lays out the 5 assumptions of his theory, which I think makes the discussion more systematic (see around minute 12 of the video).

The 5 foundational assumptions of Mearsheimer’s theory of international politics:

States are the highest authority; nothing exists above them (anarchy).
Every state has different military capabilities.
We can never truly know a state’s intentions. There are no permanent friends or foes.
The fundamental goal of every state is survival. If the state collapses, no other objective can be achieved.
Decisions made by states are the result of rational (i.e., strategic) thinking.

I think these 5 assumptions are simple enough yet perfectly capture all the analyses he has offered over the years. They can be examined together and are interconnected. According to Prof. Mearsheimer, these 5 assumptions are what make the world a terrifying place, as every state competes to become the most powerful. In an anarchic system, the only path to security is being the strongest. Because there is no institution above the state that we can rely on for help. We may have friends, but friends have their limitations too. Look at Myanmar during the military coup, or the Philippines when harassed by China. Who helped? ASEAN? Lol.

“God only helps those who help themselves.”

Connection to Microeconomic Assumptions

For economists, the assumptions above are not that hard to digest. This is mainly because we learn similar things in micro- and macroeconomics. Well, especially in microeconomics. The foundational principle of microeconomics is consumer theory, which also requires preliminary assumptions. In consumer theory, the assumption is typically that each individual maximizes their own consumption. This mirrors Mearsheimer’s assumption 4: people (and states) do not care much about others’ survival.

Now, when aspiring economists start learning Walrasian Equilibrium, they encounter some new assumptions. Walrasian equilibrium involves more than one person. What happens when an economy consists of 2 people? Walrasian equilibrium says Pareto optimality can be achieved if we let these two people trade with each other, without any intervention from a higher authority. In other words, even in anarchy, two people can achieve extra happiness without hurting anyone – just by trading. No central planner like a state is needed to dictate what these two people should do. We learn all of this in the first year of university.

Wait – in the “anarchic” world depicted by Walrasian equilibrium, everyone is happy. But in John Mearsheimer’s anarchic world, the outcome is gloomy?

Walrasian Equilibrium exists in a beautiful world. Several assumptions are in fact violated in reality – violations that John Mearsheimer has already addressed. The first assumption is that in microeconomics, there is still an institution stronger than any individual. That institution is the state. If we only care about our own consumption, then a better strategy than trading would be to rob the other party. In the Walrasian world, robbery – or “unfair exchange” – would be blocked by the harmed party. But what if the robber is stronger? In the Walrasian world, there is the state. There is the police, protecting citizens’ basic rights. In other words, the existence of this stronger actor (assumed to maintain security and order) violates Mearsheimer’s assumption #1.

Second, in the Walrasian world, there is perfect/complete information. We know for certain our neighbor’s intentions, what goods they have, and the quality of those goods. No need to worry about being cheated because all information is transparent and all intentions are clear. In economics, we eventually learn about asymmetric information, which makes market outcomes suboptimal (i.e., violates the Walrasian equilibrium). This type of information problem is also something typically addressed through government intervention.

Third, there is the price taker assumption. Everyone is a crumb compared to the vastness of the market. Nobody can dictate the market. This clearly violates Mearsheimer’s assumption #2, where some states are powerful and others are weak. This assumption is also relaxed in subsequent semesters of economics.

In principle, if we relax all the Walrasian assumptions to accommodate reality, the outcome aligns with John Mearsheimer’s thesis: the world is a cruel place. Anarchy is a cruel place. Both economists and realists know this. The difference is that economists are in a better position: we still have the state. We still have an institution above all members of society that can potentially correct all the market failures described above. Economists do not truly operate in anarchy because government policy can influence markets. For international politics, policy options that influence the world may not be as feasible as those available to economists. Well, at least as long as economists are being heard, which is not always the case.

Realism vs Pareto efficient outcomes in economics

Sat, 10 Aug 2024 15:02:49 +0700

Realism vs Pareto Optimality

Since the events in Ukraine and Palestine, I have been following John Mearsheimer more closely – a professor of international politics. He is a “realist.” In international politics there are several schools of thought, which I admittedly don’t understand deeply. But the gist, according to Prof. Mearsheimer, is that “realism” holds that what matters in inter-state relations is relative power. That is, what counts is how strong our country is compared to our neighbors. This arises from the belief that above the state, there is no higher institution that will protect it if attacked by another state. Therefore, our country must be stronger than the rest.

The emphasis here is on the word “relative.” In other words, it is fine if we are not all that strong, as long as others are much weaker than us.

This is interesting for economists because mainstream economics typically teaches Pareto Optimality early on. Pareto optimality essentially says that an outcome from exchange/trade/economic activity in general will occur as long as at least one party gains without reducing any other party’s income. This arises from a model where each entity (person or country) acts solely based on its own self-interest.

This yields the argument that if we let everyone optimize their decisions based on personal welfare, the final outcome will be better because it is guaranteed to be Pareto optimal – nobody loses, though some may gain extra income. If there are 100 people acting in self-interest, and 50 see their income rise while the other 50 see no decline, then total income (i.e., GDP) increases.

Note that “considering only oneself” clearly conflicts with the “relative” thinking of Mearsheimer’s realism. Considering only oneself means asking only whether I am getting richer, not whether I am getting richer MORE THAN my neighbor.

Example

Say you and your neighbor each have 10 million rupiah. Your neighbor offers you a project worth 10 million, where they would hire your labor for 1 million, keeping 9 million for themselves as the one who sourced the project. If you agree, you are 1 million richer, while your neighbor is 9 million richer. Would you take it?

The “Pareto optimality” school says this transaction is perfectly fine because you are 1 million richer than you would be without the deal. The “realism” school would say this might not be good, because it leaves you with 11 million while your neighbor has 19 million – nearly twice as rich as you. Before the deal, your wealth was equal; now it is not. You should be envious!

This can be taken further: under Pareto optimality, a person would not make a decision that hurts themselves. But under realism, a person might willingly take a loss, as long as their neighbor loses even more. This is why the US restricts semiconductor capital exports to China. Not only does this policy cost the US money – the US itself loses because it sells resources used to make semiconductors and buys products containing them. But the US accepts its own losses as long as China’s losses are even bigger!

Implications

Economists model optimal decisions based on utility. Pareto optimality says a person’s utility depends only on their own consumption, not their neighbor’s. But realism says we should care about our neighbor’s consumption. Why? Because of externalities. Under realism, if your neighbor gets 10 million richer and you only 1 million, they can buy a rifle while you can only afford a machete. Therefore, we must always stay vigilant and envious of our neighbors.

Returning to the jealous-neighbor scenario, at the individual level, the probability of being invaded by your neighbor is extremely low. This is because there exists an entity above individuals that will protect us if a neighbor does harm. In theory, that entity is the state. That is why we have police.

But at the state level, there is no entity higher than the state that will protect us if another country attacks. That is why, according to Professor Mearsheimer, liberalism and democracy were able to spread everywhere back in the late 80s, 90s, and 2000s. The reason is that the no. 1 entity was the United States. In those days – what Prof. Mearsheimer calls the “unipolar moment” – no entity was more powerful than the US. Everyone feared the US. The US then created NATO. This entity served as protector of its member states. The police of the world was the US.

Now? The US is weakening RELATIVELY to other countries. US GDP as a share of global GDP keeps declining, naturally because other countries (Russia and especially China) keep growing. US manufacturing capability (a proxy for military production capacity) continues to decline. Unipolarity is gradually eroding, and we are entering a “multipolar” moment. The world’s police is no longer as strong as before. In this environment, the realism school will return to the mainstream.

Of course, in economics itself, Pareto optimality has been further analyzed for its weaknesses, and we continue to strengthen models in this space. Pareto optimality is a very simple model, well-suited as a thinking framework for students (similar to simplified load assumptions in civil engineering semester 1). But sometimes I still encounter people using it for serious discussions. Nowadays, incorporating externalities (and other assumption violations) into models is nothing new. If you are an economist, always keep this in mind!

Second, the world is not run (solely) by economists. There will naturally be many political decisions that consider factors beyond economic efficiency. So there is no need to get angry when the government adopts policies that are not economically efficient – there may be other, more important objectives. But it is admittedly strange when a leader claims to prioritize the economy while producing policies that make no economic sense.

Oh, there’s a meatball vendor outside. Let me go buy some meatball soup, bye!

By the way, the part 2 post on realism is here.

Commenting on the Health Minister's Podcast with Akbar Faizal Uncensored

Mon, 22 Jul 2024 15:02:49 +0700

Recently, there’s been buzz about the Ministry of Health planning to allow foreign doctors to practice in Indonesia. I happened to come across a podcast/interview with Budi Gunadi Sadikin (BGS) on Akbar Faisal Uncensored.

The foreign doctors being allowed in are specialists. The reason is that specialist doctors are severely lacking. The output of specialist medical education is very limited. The Health Minister ran into the authority of Minister Nadiem (Higher Education), as medical faculties had been placed under a moratorium despite output being unable to meet Indonesia’s needs. According to the Minister, he had already addressed the shortage of equipment and facilities, only to find there were no doctors. This is an issue I also discussed when writing about COVID.

Look at the chart below from Our World in Data. It’s true – the number of doctors in Indonesia is extremely low, and for specialists, it’s probably even worse.

The shortage of doctors has been a problem for a very long time. Friends who focus on development research, especially health economics, always discuss this. And the problems are many – not just equipment-to-patient ratios but also health-worker-to-patient ratios! Hospital investment is needed, but ultimately…

The conversation moved to infrastructure: equitable distribution of medical equipment. Of 3,200 hospitals in districts and cities, only 300 have mammography equipment, he said. He also discussed shortages of other equipment, like stroke screening devices. Watch it yourself for the details.

When discussing infrastructure, the procurement governance of medical equipment naturally comes up. The e-catalogue was mentioned – that e-catalogue prices are higher than medical equipment elsewhere. Unfortunately, BGS didn’t mention TKDN (local content requirements), the fact that the e-catalogue must meet TKDN thresholds. And he’s an economist.

But then he talked about drug prices in general, not just government purchases through the APBN via the e-catalogue. Drug prices in Indonesia, he said, can be 2-3 times higher. Taxes alone can’t explain that gap. There must be a problem in the industry, which unfortunately wasn’t elaborated further.

The conversation shifted to priorities. Priority should go to community health centers (puskesmas). Interesting. Puskesmas aren’t getting attention, but foreign doctors are headline news because they affect the elites. Only about 20% of puskesmas have ultrasound machines. Stunting screening can be as simple as distributing scales to all puskesmas. According to BGS, his focus has been on puskesmas, what matters most for the public. But what gets attention is foreign doctors – something in the interest of the “elites,” by which he seemingly means the Indonesian Medical Association (IDI) and some doctors.

He also said we don’t need new regulations. The current legislative infrastructure is already capable of many things. For example, does BPOM (the drug and food authority) need new regulations to increase accountability? Not really. What we have should be strengthened in execution, because BPOM is already relatively autonomous and auditable by BPK.

Not needing new regulations (just fix the execution) and starting prevention from puskesmas are two things I also believe in, so at least on these two points he’s saying things I agree with.

The Minister could answer in detail, such as addressing the midwife appointment issue raised by Rieke Pitaloka on the same show previously. He could also explain problems in pharmaceuticals – which drugs are free for which diseases – bearing in mind he’s not a doctor, which is already impressive. I’ve seen far worse. Such detailed answers usually indicate he’s actually doing the work, at least when discussing problems, he’s genuinely listening and understanding.

BGS’s tone throughout this podcast was very similar to several issues in the US as well: elites vs. the general public. BGS seems to position the doctors’ consortium / IDI / subsets of doctors (Twitter doctors? haha) as the elite group. This elite group prefers to defend its own interests, and ultimately limiting and controlling who can join their club is clearly in their interest. This is similar to the “guild” problem in 14th-century Europe, and today’s American elite discussed in the book “Six Faces of Globalization” by Roberts and Lamp. Is IDI or similar organizations really like that in practice?

Next up was a tease for Azwar Anas, the minister in charge of civil servants. This would be interesting if he comes on – I’d definitely watch that episode because it affects all civil service professions, including teachers, lecturers, and health workers.

Overall, I thought BGS’s explanation was quite solid. I also liked Akbar Faizal’s build-up. I haven’t covered everything from the podcast in this post, and please note I’m not a health practitioner, so I might have missed something. If you’re interested in health issues like preventive care at puskesmas, foreign doctors, and the like, it’s best to watch the full episode here.

Thoughts? Did I miss anything? Comment on my Twitter and we can chat.

Balance of payments problems are not (just) about trade

Thu, 18 Jul 2024 15:02:49 +0700

As someone who spent a long time working in trade and industrialization, I grew up with the view that comparative advantage is everything. If our exports of a particular good, say computers, are small or even net imports, it means we are not good at making that product. In other words, Indonesia’s comparative advantage is not in computers. As a result, we tend to treat exports as the key indicator of our industrial prowess.

Of course, this is not wrong. Comparative advantage is indeed a very powerful reason to trade, and the main reason why 9 out of 10 doors of fortune lie in commerce, heh. It is also why I became a lecturer rather than some other profession: I can afford more rice by working as a lecturer than by being a farmer. I hope the government can better appreciate something as simple as comparative advantage.

But the models that explain comparative advantage come with their own assumptions, which may not hold in the real world. As a master’s graduate in economics at the time, this was obviously something I understood, but my grasp was insufficient to connect it to the broader macroeconomy. I only truly got it after following Michael Pettis from Peking University. Prof. Pettis explains it using an extremely basic concept: the accounting identity. Simple arithmetic that we all learned in undergrad: the infamous $Y=C+I+G+(X-M)$.

The key point is that the current account, or balance of payments, must always balance. If it runs a surplus or deficit, it will be offset by the financial account. In other words, if there is an imbalance in the financial account, the current account will adjust to balance it out.

One of the assumptions in the most primitive comparative advantage model (by which I of course mean the Ricardian model, the first one you learn in undergraduate international economics) is that current account = 0. In other words, in that model, exports = imports, which implies saving = investment.

Counterbalance	Condition	Sustainability
Increase in productive investment	Happen if there’s not enough domestic saving	sustainable
Rising inventories	keep production even if there’s no demand	not sustainable
Increase in speculative investment	lots of saving, not enough project to fund. money move to funny projects like ~~new capital city~~ crypto	not sustainable
Linear changes in consumption	consumption rise with income 1 to 1	sustainable but unlikely
Increase in credit-financed consumption	HH feels wealthier amid higher asset prices, fund consumption with debt	not sustainable
Increase in unemployment	When Q^{S > Q}D, firms reduce capacity -> fire workers	sustainable

From Pettis (2013)¹

Pettis, M. (2013). The Great Rebalancing: Trade, Conflict, and the Perilous Road Ahead for the World Economy. Princeton University Press. ↩︎

A chapter for ERIA on Indonesian trade in services.

Mon, 15 Jul 2024 07:28:22 +0700

A working draft. Please don’t circulate.

Mobile Legends: Bang Bang

Sun, 26 May 2024 09:00:00 +0700

I’ve started playing video games less often. Currently, there are 3 games that I still play until now:

Guild Wars 2.
Monster Hunter Wilds.
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang.

Guild Wars 2

I’ve always enjoyed playing MMORPGs, and Guild Wars 2 is one game I still play to this day. I’ve been playing this game for a long time—probably since I was in graduate school for my master’s degree. I play it on and off, and since this game doesn’t have vertical progression, it’s great for casual on-and-off gameplay. I main mesmer and mostly do PvE content.

I play in the America region on the Dragonbrand server. Hit me up with my ID at Madboy.6804.

Monster Hunter Wilds

It’s a new game, and I’ve been a fan of Monster Hunter for a long time. I mainly use the insect glaive and bow, but I also enjoy using the long sword. I was introduced to the series by my Filipino PhD colleague back when Monster Hunter World came out. That’s why when Wilds launched, I bought it immediately. However, my Pinoy friend and I have both been busy lately, so we haven’t had time to play together—haha.

Mobile Legends: Bang Bang

As a former DotA player, I think it’s only natural that I eventually started playing this. Again, I play it on and off. I mostly play as support/roamer, occasionally filling in other lanes, but I definitely can’t handle assassin or jungle roles.

Add me my id 242310541.

The trade balance and why we can't buy nice things

Mon, 20 May 2024 15:01:51 +1000

Latest World Bank report on international trade and green transition in Indonesia

Thu, 18 Jan 2024 15:02:49 +0700

On January 18, 2024, I had the opportunity to attend a joint event by the Ministry of Trade and The World Bank. The theme was “Trading Towards Sustainability: The Role of Trade Policies in Indonesia’s Green Transformation.” Quite a mouthful, but from the title you can tell the focus was on how trade policy can facilitate Indonesia’s green transition.

This event essentially promoted the World Bank’s latest report on Indonesia’s trade policy. The report discusses Indonesia’s trade in goods categorized as “green goods” – products needed for the green transition such as electric vehicles, solar panels, and the capital goods and raw materials required to produce them. The report can be downloaded here.

The report was presented by its lead author, Angela Montfaucon. According to Ms. Montfaucon, imports are needed not only to accelerate adoption but also to grow the green industry itself, since much of the imports consist of capital goods. Indonesia needs to reduce tariffs on green goods. More importantly, Indonesia needs to push for harmonization and streamlining of non-tariff measures (NTMs), not just domestically but also regionally and even globally. This is crucial to help Indonesia improve market access to developed countries that are willing to pay a premium for products with a “green” label.

This report could serve as a great entry point for researchers interested in studying the relationship between international trade, green transition, and future economic growth.

What made the event particularly interesting was the participation of several private sector representatives working in green industries. These included Ms. Noni from Bluebird, Mr. Suharji from Amandina Bumi Nusantara (rPET), Ms. Candra from ECADIN (CCS), and Mr. Fajar from Syntek (solar PV construction). Each shared their experiences in their respective fields and the challenges they face.

Amandina Bumi Nusantara explained that their company has successfully produced recycled PET bottles with a smaller carbon footprint. Although these bottles are more expensive than virgin PET bottles, their clients (mostly large companies like Coca-Cola) are willing to pay the premium.

Ms. Candra said that Indonesia has potential for carbon capture and storage (CCS), partly because Indonesia has plenty of underground space to store captured carbon (likely referring to depleted fossil fuel reserves and mining cavities). If true, this is exciting because it means we could sell carbon storage space from former mining sites.

Lastly, solar PV. Solar PV growth in Indonesia has been rapid, with installed capacity doubling each year. However, it still lags far behind countries like Thailand, Vietnam, and India.

According to the private sector representatives, the main issues are TKDN (local content requirement) rules and SNI (Indonesian national standard) certification. There were many examples of NTM-related problems, but I recall one from Mr. Fajar in the solar PV industry. He mentioned that getting SNI certification requires waiting in a queue for one year. Because solar PV technology advances so rapidly, by the time a product receives SNI certification, it’s often already outdated.

In short, the event was excellent and I learned a lot. I’m always delighted that my field of international trade remains relevant and keeps getting more interesting. It really is time for environmental issues to be integrated into international trade and international economics more broadly.

By the way, the event can be watched on YouTube. The event page is on Facebook.

Cigarette excise project with PROSPERA

Mon, 20 Nov 2023 11:28:22 +1000

A framework to estimate cigarette excise elasticity

This report presents our analysis on mainly estimating elasticity and forecasting future excise and revenue for DGCE. We find that the elasticity of demand to be vary between -0.5 to -1.1. We also find a strong case for tax-price pass-through for SKM and SPM tobacco type. Our findings corroborates most literature on the Indonesian tobacco use. Unfortunately data limits how much and how robust the analysis can get. In particular, we find very little value of analysis on electric cigarettes, which maindly due to only one year datapoint available for study.

Does ASEAN matter? How the summit tackles current challenges

Sat, 24 Jun 2023 09:00:00 +0700

The audio isn’t the best, but the two speakers are audible.

Public policy analysis: a discussion

Wed, 21 Jun 2023 14:00:00 +0700

The Complexity of Evaluating the Performance of the Directorate General of Agro-Industry

Fri, 09 Jun 2023 09:00:00 +0700

Government spending and inequality

Mon, 15 May 2023 07:35:08 +0700

Inequality is one of the most important issues of our time. You’ve surely seen people discussing inequality on social media. Recently, a Twitter account crossed my timeline arguing: how can there be Coldplay tickets priced at 11 million rupiah while so many people are poor? And they sold out, too!

We can debate the validity of such statements. But we can’t deny how widely discussed inequality is – not just in Indonesia but worldwide. In the early days of neoliberalism’s heyday (perhaps the 80s-90s), inequality didn’t get much spotlight from influential economists. It was considered a byproduct of an efficient economy. Besides, for a more productive, efficient, and wealthy country, reducing inequality is naturally easier than in a poor one. That’s no longer the case. More and more economists recognize the importance of inequality even before a country is rich.

But the argument that wealthy nations can more easily reduce inequality may be valid. After all, wealthy citizens spend more and drive the economy for others – so-called “trickle-down economics” (we can argue against trickle-down economics; perhaps in another post).

More importantly, if citizens are wealthy, the government can tax more. With more tax revenue, the government can redistribute more to those in need. This is essentially forced trickle-down. This is the trick used by countries that lean social democratic and welfare-state. Thanks to redistribution, income inequality matters less because high earners pay more taxes, and the proceeds are distributed as social assistance, so consumption inequality can be kept in check.

It’s therefore clearly important to see how GDP growth can translate into high tax and non-tax government revenue! How does Indonesia’s government revenue compare to other countries?

The relationship between inequality and government revenue can actually be tested – and easily, since nowadays we can pull data from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators. Here I plot GINI Ratio against Government Revenue from that source.

The GINI Ratio ranges from 0 to 100, where 0 means perfect equality and 100 means perfect inequality. Government Revenue is measured as % of GDP. I use World Development Indicators data from 2015.

There does appear to be an inverse relationship, consistent with the theory above: the higher the government revenue, the lower the GINI Ratio. There are some outliers, but most observations fit the red regression line. From this simple exercise, it’s clear that ensuring government revenue keeps pace with economic growth must be a key target. Moreover, continuing or even expanding anti-inequality programs is increasingly necessary.

Disclaimer: this is just plain OLS with no treatment of any kind and plenty of potential biases. Think of this as an introduction for those who want to conduct more serious and in-depth research. For those interested in replicating the chart above, I used the code below. Hope this post is useful.

import wbdata as wb
import datetime
import statsmodels.api as sm
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

## Pull data from World Development Indicators
a=wb.get_dataframe({"SI.POV.GINI" : "GINI"},
 data_date=datetime.datetime(2015,1,1), convert_date=True, keep_levels=True)
a["GR"]=wb.get_dataframe({"GC.REV.XGRT.GD.ZS" : "GR"},
 data_date=datetime.datetime(2015,1,1), convert_date=True, keep_levels=True)
a=a.reset_index()

## Find regression line parameters using OLS
x = sm.add_constant(a.GR)
model=sm.OLS(a.GINI,x,missing='drop')

results = model.fit()
b,c=results.params

## Plot chart
plt.scatter(a.GR,a.GINI)

# Plot regression line
xseq = np.linspace(8, 50, num=500)
plt.plot(xseq, b + c * xseq, color="red", lw=2.5)

plt.xlabel("Government's Revenue")
plt.ylabel('GINI Ratio')
plt.title("GINI Ratio vs Government Revenue")
plt.show()

GVC, Structural Transformation, and Policy Implications for Indonesia's Food and Beverage Industry

Mon, 14 Nov 2022 13:00:00 +0700

Behind the Packaging: Understanding Global Supply Chains in Indonesia's Food Industry

Fri, 16 Sep 2022 08:47:06 +0700

A very engaging event. Most participants were students, though some were from government and the private sector. Don’t forget to visit the Di Balik Bungkus website here.

Guest Lecture Video

Projecting the long-run impact of an economic reform: the case of the Indonesian Omnibus Law

Fri, 16 Sep 2022 08:47:06 +0700

Video Recording

Slides

Book review: "How the World Became Rich: the Historical Origins of Economic Growth"

Fri, 19 Aug 2022 15:10:34 +0700

I just finished reading How the World Became Rich: the Historical Origins of Economic Growth.

This book is written by two highly accomplished economic historians. It discusses how the world became prosperous. In general, human progress has been extraordinary. The poorest person on earth today has a better standard of living than the wealthiest people in medieval times. For example, many diseases that killed aristocrats in the past now have treatments. There’s no denying that poverty still needs to be eradicated, and Koyama & Rubin argue that learning from history can offer solutions for making the world even more prosperous.

The book opens with Part One, which contains chapters explaining several factors that are prerequisites for a country to become prosperous. This section is like a synthesis of various similar books you may know, such as those by Acemoglu and Diamond. Several explanations are unpacked, including geography, demography, colonization, institutions, and culture.

The next part covers how these factors combine to explain why the first Industrial Revolution happened in England and nowhere else. According to Koyama & Rubin, it’s crucial to understand why England was first, because the Industrial Revolution is what truly lifted humanity toward sustained economic growth. Many regions and nations experienced golden ages – Rome, the Ottomans, Imperial China – but none achieved what England did. Why didn’t the Industrial Revolution start there? Why England, which was almost always poorer throughout pre-industrial history?

I really love Koyama & Rubin’s storytelling. They avoid convoluted language, making their explanations very accessible. The transitions between chapters flow beautifully, especially in Part Two. After discussing why England, they address why not elsewhere. Then they move to why the rest of Europe followed, then the United States, and finally the Asian Tigers (Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore).

Because the narrative flows so well, I think their book is also very suitable for a general audience. Some of their explanations may be old hat for economists, especially development economists. But even for economists, their synthesis is extremely helpful for framing the factors affecting development, particularly in answering why England came first.

As an Indonesian, my mind naturally connects the book’s content to the Indonesian context. They mention Indonesia once, when discussing the importance of infrastructure and colonialism for economic growth. They cite Dell & Olken (2020) ¹, whose finding is that the areas in Java that are most economically developed today are those that historically served as logistics routes for the sugar industry. This colonial legacy is a key factor in why some regions are wealthier than others. Koyama & Rubin also note that after independence, local elites in such countries tended to continue colonial institutions rather than dismantle them – essentially replacing foreign colonizers with domestic ones.

They also point out that trust among citizens tends to be very low in former colonies where local populations helped the colonizers (as proxy leaders, slave traders, etc.). Yet trust is critical for whether a country can build good democratic institutions.

Yes, in this book, Koyama & Rubin emphasize the importance of having institutions that constrain executive power. Leaders whose power is constrained are less likely to default on debts, so they can borrow at lower interest rates. Constrained leaders also can’t arbitrarily declare wars or suppress innovation (say, because it conflicts with the ruler’s ideology). In other words, developed countries are typically those where, as the saying goes, leaders can’t just do whatever they want.

Ora iso sak penake dewe!

Hal ini penting dan harus digaris bawahi bahwa setiap negara memiliki aturan tersendiri dan harus dihormati. Sama seperti kita jika hendak berbisnis di luar negeri. Harus patuh dan mengikuti aturan yang berlaku di sana.
— Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno (@sandiuno) July 30, 2022

One reason England got rich, according to the authors, was the parliamentary system of nobles and merchants that constrained royal power. Although parliaments existed in Spain and Portugal too, their ability to check the king and queen was not as effective as in England and the Low Countries (Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg).

Beyond constraining rulers, they also emphasize the importance of an educated citizenry. The reason Protestant countries tended to be more successful, they argue, is that Protestant nations helped improve human resources by teaching people to read. The original purpose was to get people to read the Bible, but it turned out to be useful for reading other things as well, enabling faster information dissemination. Protestant-based countries also tended to be more secular.

Oh, and when Koyama & Rubin described Mao Zedong’s thinking about the importance of a centralized economy and price controls, somehow I was reminded of certain leaders in Indonesia recently. Let’s hope the outcomes differ. The Mao era was terrifying.

In short, this book is extremely enjoyable. I highly recommend it because it’s essentially a synthesis of development economics packed into a slim volume (only about 170 pages) that is dense and up-to-date. It’s also very informative with many interesting citations worth following up on. For instance, if you want to dig deeper into the demographic impact on growth, just follow the citations in the demography chapter. The language isn’t complicated, and the narrative flows well. If you’re going to read just one book about how humanity became prosperous, pick this one!

N.B.: Dell & Olken (2020) complements two other articles about Indonesia that I also find fascinating: Kuipers (2022) ² and Bazzi, Koehler-Derrick and Marx (2020) ³. Must-reads if you’re into institutional economics or history.

Dell, Melissa, and Benjamin Olken. (2020). “The Development Effects of the Extractive Colonial Economy: The Dutch Cultivation System in Java.” Review of Economic Studies 87, no. 1. ↩︎
Kuipers, N. (2022). The Long-Run Consequences of The Opium Concessions for Out-Group Animosity on Java. World Politics, 1-38. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0043887122000041 ↩︎
Bazzi, S., Koehler-Derrick, G., & Marx, B. (2020). The Institutional Foundations of Religious Politics: Evidence from Indonesia. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 135(2), 845-911. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjz038 ↩︎

Why DMO, DPO, and price ceilings failed to control cooking oil prices and supply

Wed, 16 Mar 2022 10:26:01 +0700

(update 7 April 2022: added no. 8 in table 1)

Introduction

In recent days, the government has been grappling with rising cooking oil prices. The government is trying to keep cooking oil prices low. The President with ensuring price stability. The instruments used by the Ministry of Trade (MoT) include imposing a Domestic Market Obligation (DMO) on palm oil as the raw material for cooking oil, as well as setting a Domestic Price Obligation (DPO) for palm oil and a maximum retail price (HET) for cooking oil. Below is a summary of issued up to the time of writing.

Table 1: Timeline of MoT regulations on CPO and cooking oil

No	Date	Regulation	Issue
1	11 January 2022	Permendag 1/2022	BPD PKS subsidy for cooking oil in simple packaging, with HET of IDR 14,000 per liter.
2	18 January 2022	Permendag 2/2022	DMO obligation for 9 tariff lines begins.
3	19 January 2022	Permendag 3/2022	Revision of no. 1, subsidy expanded to all packaging types.
4	1 February 2022	Permendag 6/2022	HET split into 3: IDR 11,500 for bulk, IDR 13,500 for simple packaging, IDR 14,000 for premium packaging.
5	8 February 2022	Permendag 8/2022	Revision of no. 2, DMO expanded to 60 tariff lines.
6	10 February 2022	Kepmendag 129/2022	DMO set at 20%.
7	9 March 2022	Kepmendag 170/2022	DMO set at 30%.
8	20 March 2022	Permendag 12/2022	DMO revoked.

In the latest development, the government will for packaged cooking oil. Meanwhile, bulk cooking oil will follow an HET of IDR 14,000 per liter. This became effective on 16 March 2022. Why release the HET? Because under the HET described in no. 4 of table 1, supply shortages occurred, leaving many people unable to buy cooking oil – some even while queuing for it.

Underlying Assumptions

The DMO instrument is naturally premised on the assumption that cooking oil is expensive because the raw material is expensive. Indeed, around July, palm oil prices appeared to start rising. According to data from (figure 1), the price of Crude Palm Oil (CPO) began to climb around July 2021, and rose again in September 2021.

Figure 1. CPO prices

By the way, look at what happened to prices after January. They went even higher after Indonesia implemented the DMO and DPO.

Meanwhile, data presented by the Trade Minister at a (minute 5) on 9 March 2022 showed a slight increase in July 2021, with a sharper spike around November 2021. It seems this November spike triggered the government’s response. The Minister also showed a decline in cooking oil prices in February 2022, citing it as evidence that the HET successfully brought prices down.

Armed with this information, it seems reasonable for the MoT to deduce that rising CPO prices were the root cause of expensive cooking oil. If so, it is logical for the MoT to think the solution lies in restricting exports (in this case via the DMO), thereby suppressing domestic CPO prices.

In other words, because the Minister felt the problem was on the buyer-competition side, the MoT helped domestic CPO buyers by forcing exporters to divert 20% (later 30%) of their production to the domestic market.

Unfortunately, cooking oil remained expensive. The DMO and DPO should have ensured sufficient raw material supply for cooking oil. The next deduction: CPO was being channeled to the domestic market, but for products other than cooking oil. This is why the DMO was expanded from 9 to 60 products (table 1, no. 5), to cover downstream CPO products like soap.

Yet cooking oil remained scarce despite all these policies. The next deduction: there must be a mafia, speculators, or leakage abroad. This is how the MoT came to involve the police.

But could there be other problems?

Why the Price Ceiling Failed

The two problems above touch on fundamental supply and demand dynamics that push prices upward, even in the absence of mafias or speculators. Therefore, if these two issues are real, the HET will also fail. Beyond these two factors, several other things made the HET worsen the situation.

Distribution Costs

Distribution costs vary across regions and can undermine the HET. Cooking oil factories appear to be concentrated in western Indonesia, such as Sumatra and Java¹. Shipping to other regions is necessary. If this is the case, cooking oil prices should vary across different regions even under normal circumstances. Using from PIHPS, I created the chart below. It contains monthly cooking oil prices at traditional markets since January 2018 across all Indonesian provinces. I highlighted a few provinces.

Figure 2. Cooking oil prices

If price variation exists even in normal times, then the HET threatens shortages in regions with difficult distribution, especially at a time when energy and shipping costs are at historic highs.

Other Issues

Actually, the government has long wanted to regulate packaged cooking oil – since around 2016 if I recall correctly. There was a regulation requiring retailers to sell cooking oil only in packaging, not in bulk. But this regulation was repeatedly postponed because packaged cooking oil would become too expensive if imposed on all producers and consumers. In fact, based on these repeated postponements, one could have predicted the HET would cause problems. I don’t think any HET has ever succeeded in Indonesia.

Mafia?

Many also claim mafias are involved, or that cooking oil is a cartel industry. I think these accusations are reasonably grounded, given Indonesia’s poor reputation for in starting businesses, and its ranking as the world’s 8th most economy according to The Economist. Moreover, nearly 50% of cooking oil sales are controlled by just .

Dealing with mafias is difficult though. It is probably not just a cooking oil problem. Especially if vertical integration from plantations to downstream products is actually more efficient when done by large companies. If these “mafias” grew large because they are efficient, recklessly tinkering with the industry could actually reduce efficiency. The government may have chosen to intervene in the industry because it lacks the tools to prosecute the big players (for various reasons). But intervention in cooking oil risks hurting the small players, since the big ones can always maneuver. Don’t forget, according to Ministry of Agriculture data, about 40% of palm oil plantations are smallholder estates that may benefit from supplying to larger factories.

Besides, figure 2 shows a sharp spike in November 2021. If mafias played a significant role, prices should have been high all along. Why only November? Did the mafia just form that month? Did they just hold a price-fixing meeting? Probably not. The sharp rise actually correlates with the point when CPO consumption by biodiesel producers surpassed CPO for food.

I think the mafia argument is very plausible. In fact, new mafias may have emerged because of the HET, which increased incentives for hoarding and smuggling due to price disparities. However, it seems hard to use the mafia as the primary explanation for the sharp rise in cooking oil prices. Even if mafias play a large role, the HET and DMO are probably not the right solutions – they may actually create incentives for both existing and aspiring mafias.

Conclusion

This problem may have actually gotten worse because the DMO, DPO, and HET failed to stabilize prices and supply. People who lose confidence in the government’s ability to secure supply may start hoarding, which only worsens the situation.

Meanwhile, producers unable to meet the DMO or unable to supply cooking oil at the HET price will be forced to stop production. This will inevitably have knock-on effects on employment and consumption more broadly – particularly ironic as the fasting month approaches.

Can we blame the MoT alone? Of course not. As an agency tasked by the President, it is perfectly reasonable for the MoT to use DMO, DPO, and HET since those are the instruments at its disposal. Some alternative solutions – such as increasing export levies – require coordination with the Ministry of Finance (which was ). The biofuel program falls under the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources. Social assistance falls under the Ministry of Social Affairs. Then there is the supply side: labor, weather, fertilizer prices. State land use? That is under the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. Distribution has always been a chronic problem in Indonesia. Not to mention mafias. All of these factors, which fundamentally push cooking oil prices up, lie outside the MoT’s jurisdiction.

If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Now the MoT has agreed to release the HET along with raising the export levy to 80%. I think this is a reasonable step. The government now has funds for cooking oil subsidies, at least for bulk oil (while biodiesel subsidies continue). Cooking oil is starting to reappear, and supply is recovering fairly quickly (from hoarders?). In my view, higher prices with available goods are better than low prices with nothing on the shelves. At least if the product is available, we can all buy it and consume it frugally.

Prices may surge initially after the release. But as supply increases and production restarts – since prices will be more palatable for producers – I am fairly confident we will start seeing cooking oil prices gradually decline, though they will likely remain above IDR 14,000 (remember, there are many fundamental issues at play). Prices may stay elevated due to increased demand as Ramadan approaches. We’ll see.

For now, I very much appreciate the MoT’s decision to finally release prices to the market. Time to support Pak Lutfi and the team at the MoT.

Kementerian Perdagangan. Profil Komoditas Minyak Goreng. ↩︎

Menakar Efektivitas Neraca Komoditas

Wed, 23 Feb 2022 09:28:58 +0700

Sekilas tentang Buku Kami

Thu, 19 Aug 2021 16:44:04 +1000

About the book

Indonesia Emas Berkelanjutan 2045: Kumpulan Pemikiran Pelajar Indonesia Sedunia

Series 01 Ekonomi

s.id/bukuppid

About the book

This book is a part of 12 book series on “Indonesia Emas Berkelanjutan 2045” (Sustaniable Golden Indonesia 2045) written by Overseas Indonesian Students Association Alliance (OISAA)
SDGs are used as our guide making sure the book covers sustainability and inclusivity.
This book in particular uses goals 1, 8 dan 10.
This book is published by LIPI Press and can be accessed here

About this book

Goals 1: Poverty eradication

Poverty eradication in Indonesia including social protection programs.

Goals 8: Decent work and economic Growth

Economic growth, labor productivity, tourism, (youth) employment and skill and education progress, among others

Goals 10: Reduced inequality

Sustainable migration, progress in reducing inequality in general but also among rural-urban, islands, and gender.

Thanks!

Kuliah Umum

Profesor (Emeritus) Dorodjatun Kuntjoro-Jakti

atau pergi ke YouTube

Is the Blackwidow V3 Mini Hyperspeed any good? Trying the yellow switch!

Mon, 05 Jul 2021 09:47:19 +1000

In my previous post, I wrote about . My last non-mechanical keyboard was the , which I bought for work from home. In that post I also described my journey to the , a keyboard that’s mechanical but technically optical.

Why mechanical keyboards and Razer?

I switched to mechanical keyboards because they’re widely recommended in typist forums. On top of that, mechanical keyboards can be programmed with macros and remapped keys with custom functions. This is super useful for my daily work. I’ve loaded my keyboard’s extra functions with various text snippets for commands and methods in languages I frequently use, such as (R)markdown syntax, Python, and Stata.

For adding functions and alternate key assignments, I’ve found Razer to be among the best. It can remap all keys and add functions to every key (Razer calls this ). For example, I can store the text {{< icon name="exclamation-triangle" pack="fas" >}} on the K key. I can bring up that text by pressing fn+K. And every key can do this.

By the way, the syntax above renders on my blog as this ->

The main drawback of Razer is the price. Fortunately, in Australia and on Amazon, there are frequent big sales, especially around the end of the financial year and Boxing Day. Razer also has a student discount program, which is very helpful for a student like me.

Of course, mechanical keyboards aren’t for everyone. They’re quite pricey and you may not need their features. True, a mechanical keyboard makes me type faster, but the difference isn’t huge. If your work doesn’t urgently require fast typing, you may not need one. Macros and Hypershift aren’t for everyone either. Also, if you’re switching from a thin keyboard to a mechanical one for the first time, it might feel uncomfortable – sore fingers and such. If you have no issues with your current keyboard, switching to mechanical probably isn’t a priority.

Mechanical keyboards also come with all sorts of switch types. Since they’re expensive, most people will only buy one. But which one? In this post, I want to compare three Razer switches I’ve tried. They are Razer Purple, Razer Green, and Razer Yellow.

There are probably many keyboards that offer better value than Razer at their price point. Nowadays there are tons of great mechanical keyboards at affordable prices, if you’re only after the switches. For instance, if you don’t care much about software, macros, wireless, or RGB, you might be better off with a different brand. But be careful with availability in Indonesia since importing can be complicated.

This time I’ll discuss the with the Yellow switch.

Blackwidow V3 mini hyperspeed yellow switch!

First, let’s discuss why the Yellow switch.

Why Yellow switch?

Before getting to Yellow, let’s compare the Razer switches I’ve tried.

Switches
Keyboard	Razer Blackwidow	Razer Huntsman	Razer Blackwidow V3 Mini
Feel	Clicky	Clicky	Linear
Actuation force (g)	50	45	45
Actuation travel (mm)	1.74	1.56	1.2
Total travel (mm)	4.0	3.5	3.5
typing speed (WPM)	84	84	81

From the stats above, the Yellow switch is the lightest. Its travel is also not as deep as the clicky switches. Razer’s Yellow switch is comparable to the Cherry MX Red. The feel is linear with fast actuation.

Gamers typically prefer fast actuation because the shorter travel means you don’t have to lift the key as high to ‘reset’ and press again. Great for games requiring fast reactions like First Person Shooters – strafing (side-to-side movement) can be faster.

But for typing, I still find clicky more comfortable. It’s true that clicky switches have longer travel, but you don’t have to press all the way to the bottom. The feedback from the click is still more satisfying for typing. You can see in the table that my speed dropped slightly with Yellow, and accuracy dropped noticeably. More typos because the switch is too light.

In terms of noise, clicky is definitely louder. The Razer Yellow is reasonably silent.

Why mini?

The Blackwidow V3 Mini is a 65% keyboard, meaning it has no numpad and no F1-F12 keys.

V3 mini in action

How do you manage without numpad and F keys? F keys are accessed via Fn + number. For example, to refresh (F5), press fn + 5. To rename (F2), press fn + 2. Numpad? Just doesn’t exist.

Isn’t that inconvenient? Absolutely! Especially since the ESC key is now next to the number 1, making backtick and ~ awkward because you need shift and fn simultaneously. I remapped CAPS LOCK to Fn for convenience. So now I have two Fn keys – the original one on the bottom right and Caps Lock.

The advantage is space. The mouse can be closer to your left hand since there’s more room on the right side. My desk isn’t very big and I keep lots of stuff on it, so having a smaller keyboard is a huge benefit.

V3 mini in action

I still fumble sometimes. I’ve had to make several key adjustments. Besides Caps Lock, I also remapped Pg Up, Pg Down, and Ins. Space for macros is reduced since the Huntsman had way more keys.

That’s why key remapping is so important for a 65% keyboard. For instance, the V3 Mini doesn’t have Home or End – two keys I use often. But it has INS, which I never use. So they need to be remapped. If you buy one without remapping capability, make sure the keys it includes are ones you actually use.

So far, the space savings and closer mouse position seem like a pretty good trade-off. Just need a bit more adjustment.

Conclusion

The downside? The price, of course. At this price, you could get a keyboard of similar quality. With the decreasing cost of mechanical switches, you can get comparable keyboards for perhaps half the price. I only bought this because I got a discount. I’m also not confident enough to try other keyboards when I’m unsure about their programmable button setup. But if you want a regular 65% mechanical keyboard, you’re probably better off buying something else.

For typing, clicky is still more comfortable in my opinion. Unless you’re a competitive gamer, clicky is probably the way to go. This keyboard is more silent, but clicky is still better for typing. Trade-offs. But I don’t regret buying the Yellow either.

That’s it!

Indonesian Students Association abroad: what is it for?

Sun, 27 Jun 2021 21:57:43 +1000

Twitter is currently buzzing because of this post by BEM UI (the Student Executive Board of the University of Indonesia):

JOKOWI: THE KING OF LIP SERVICE pic.twitter.com/EVkE1Fp7vz
— BEM UI (@BEMUI_Official) June 26, 2021

Among the replies, several were interesting, essentially questioning BEM UI’s legitimacy in representing all UI students’ views. Some said BEM UI should not be used as a political tool. Others even attacked the chairperson and took issue with the fact that the BEM UI chair is a member of HMI (Islamic Students Association).

In this post, I do not intend to discuss BEM UI’s critique itself – whether its substance is on point, whether its method was appropriate. What I find more interesting is the broader question of the function of student organizations. Should they be “politicized”?

Perhimpunan Pelajar Indonesia Dunia (PPID)

Wait, why the sudden jump to PPID (World Association of Indonesian Students)? Heh, sorry. I have to admit that I was never an active student organization member. I was the kind of student who went to class, went home, and played video games. I am not great at organizational work and tend to be short-sighted. So I don’t think I have the legitimacy to talk about student bodies in general, like BEM UI. I will focus on PPID.

My involvement with PPID was one of the rare organizational activities I undertook as a student. But even “involved” is generous – I mainly helped a bit with research. PPID has a wing called the Directorate of Research and Studies, led by Denny Irawan. I helped him with economics studies. This function may differ a bit from BEM’s, but that is precisely what drew me in.

Anyway, this post is really about my understanding of what PPI is actually for. One thing that struck me was an article by dr. Rully Tri Cahyono, former chair of PPI Groningen (the Netherlands), titled “The Shifting Role of Indonesian Student Associations”. In it, he critiques the current PPI for being too “party-oriented.”

According to him, PPI in the pre-1920s era – when it existed only in the Netherlands – was indeed formed by Indonesian students to, well, “hang out and have fun.” Just getting together. After the 1920s, as more Indonesian youth studied in the Netherlands, PPI began shifting to a more “political” direction, coinciding with the arrival of Mohammad Hatta and his cohort. The original article is worth reading – it is quite illuminating.

His message was: PPI, which now exists in many countries and even has a “world” version, is reverting to mere socializing? He envisions a PPI that returns to the post-1920s spirit: active in social and political movements.

Perhaps something like what BEM UI is doing right now? Only Pak Rully would know for sure, but my guess is yes.

A More Activist and Scientific PPI?

I honestly don’t know how many people share Pak Rully’s concern about PPI being too “party-focused.” But anecdotally, I have frequently encountered similar remarks even before joining PPI. Many say Indonesian student associations abroad have too much fun and not enough substance. After all, we are a group of highly privileged individuals who should have a cause to champion.

I am among those who believe Indonesian students should contribute intellectual output or research in written form. Again, anecdotally, I have heard comments like “person X only posts vacation photos. They should be posting achievements. Publications. Conference presentations.” Regardless of the vacation-posting debate, I think these observations have a point.

Especially as a scholarship recipient. Who knows how many more deserving people could have gone in my place? I feel a moral obligation to take my studies seriously and perform well. I felt that, anyway. Whether I actually performed is another matter.

I joined PPID because I wanted to help elevate the image of Indonesian students – particularly those in PPI – beyond just socializing, and to make the scientific side more visible. An incredible presumption, I know. But hey, at least I wasn’t alone.

Oh, one major project we had at PPID’s Ditlitka was writing a book to be published through LIPI Press. Stay tuned!

PPI: For Whom?

But the most lively discussion about the role of Indonesian student associations actually took place at a halal bi halal gathering in Canberra.

In late May 2021, PPI ACT (Canberra), ANUISA (the Indonesian student organization at ANU), and Indonesia Synergy – an organization I am also a member of – organized a halal bi halal event at my campus, ANU.

This event, disguised as a halal-bi-halal gathering with food, actually started with a free-flowing discussion about the role of PPI. The discussion was very engaging and illuminating. If I had to summarize, there were at least 5 reasons why PPI should exist.

1. Student Welfare

The first reason that immediately came up was student welfare. This is the core of the question “PPI for whom?” As an organization formed by students, PPI should naturally strive for the wellbeing of Indonesian students.

Living in a foreign country, especially for first-timers who know nobody, is not easy. Several examples of PPI’s welfare role emerged: Mas Haly from PPI ACT ran a kind of “people’s garage” to help students whose cars broke down, especially when they weren’t near home. PPI Australia organized webinars with relevant officials on Back for Good procedures and shipping belongings back to Indonesia. My friend Riandy noted that PPI was the only organization he could think of to contact when first arriving in Australia – for information and maybe even pooling airport pickups.

Welfare-related activities probably garner the easiest support, mainly because student welfare benefits everyone.

2. Advocacy

The second role is still welfare-related but leans more toward advocacy. Gatra, also a friend of mine, raised this idea by pointing to PARSA, the postgraduate student organization at ANU. PARSA frequently advocates for postgrad students’ interests – such as pushing for affordable housing or helping students who feel mistreated by the university. PARSA even has its own lawyer. And despite often being at odds with the university, part of PARSA’s funding actually comes from the university itself.

3. Socializing

Although many like to mock vacation trips and other recreational activities, these are undeniably important for students, and demand is high. I myself once joined a ski trip organized by ANUISA (or was it PARSA? Or PPI? I forget) at a reasonable price.

Socializing is not just for the students there either. Many friends back in Indonesia seem quite interested in posts, photos, and videos of life abroad.

Socializing isn’t only about travel. It can include halal-bi-halal gatherings or other social events. It can also involve coordinating festivals with the campus or embassy. These activities are especially helpful for those who get homesick.

4. Position Statements and Activism

This is the role that, I gather, dr. Rully wants to see more of, and also what BEM UI is doing now: taking a stance on the Indonesian President. The feeling is not exclusive to dr. Rully. I believe many Indonesian students have a strong desire to engage in activism and take positions on issues.

Not only that, public demand for Indonesian students to speak up is also high. I frequently hear things like “how can Indonesian students abroad stay silent while the KPK is being gutted?”

But this is precisely where Indonesian students often diverge. Unlike welfare-related matters that benefit ALL Indonesian students abroad, position statements or activism do not uniformly resonate. For example, when PPI is asked to take a stance on FPI, Papua, Palestine, or Myanmar, achieving 100% consensus is difficult. If PPI issues a statement in such circumstances, the question arises: whose views does it represent?

This echoes some of the replies to the BEM UI tweet that opened this post.

Moreover, Indonesia today is very different from the 1920s. As a layperson in history, I can only speculate about how easy it was to build consensus around independence from colonial rule. But it is probably not hard to imagine that the majority of PI members back then shared the same spirit of independence. If you were a nationalist, your position against the colonial government was clear.

Today, Indonesia is independent with a legitimate government. Activism becomes somewhat harder because the meaning of nationalism is more contestable. Does nationalism mean always agreeing with the current government? Would the nation be the same under a different (still Indonesian) administration? Should we comment on colonialism by other nations? These questions make activism somewhat more challenging, in my view, especially given diverse educational backgrounds and experiences.

5. Advancing Research and Knowledge

The last role is more intellectual. Indonesian students are now everywhere. In Australia alone, they are at many different universities. In other countries there are certainly many students who, while within the same discipline, have different specializations, use different techniques, and are trained by different supervisors. PPI can serve as a platform to connect these young intellectuals and create space for research collaboration.

As a student whose hobby was going to class and going home, I actually find this function very appealing and potentially beneficial.

So, Which One Is PPI?

In the end, our free-flowing discussion did not definitively settle which of these 5 reasons best justifies PPI’s existence. We all got hungry and if food wasn’t served soon, things might have gotten chaotic.

We briefly discussed “levels” within PPI. Welfare-related activities make more sense at the city or at most national level. Perhaps PPID (the world level) is less suited for that. But PPID could advocate for broader issues, like pushing for an umbrella legal protection for Indonesian citizens abroad, or something similar.

Personally, I think which function PPI ultimately adopts depends on its leadership and cabinet composition. For instance, Mas Haly’s garage program might not be continued by the next leadership. Similarly, the book-writing project (arguably function #5) may not carry over to the next PPID administration.

Don’t forget that participation in student organizations is voluntary. Unlike PARSA, PPI generally doesn’t have a large and consistent funding source, let alone the budget to pay people for specific welfare and advocacy functions. We cannot judge people who join PPI. Are they genuinely interested in organizing? Are they altruistic and intent on helping fellow students? Or do they have a personal agenda? Do they want to use PPI for personal political gain and social climbing? Even if so, is that wrong?

And don’t forget, student activities can take non-PPI forms too. IS, for instance, was formed somewhat accidentally to serve an intellectual function because ANU frequently hosts visitors worth having great discussions with. Before the pandemic, our most recent guests included Bu Mari Pangestu, Pak Adrianus from Kompolnas, Prof Arif Ansori Yusuf, and Pak Burhanuddin Muhtadi.

Activism also does not have to go through PPI. IS itself has engaged in activism on several occasions when Mbak Chitra was still in Canberra.

So, what is PPI’s function? Why should PPI exist? Any ideas? Reply here!

Economics

Thu, 04 Feb 2021 22:04:07 +1100

Economics

BE4158

First meeting

IBE at Petra

Krisna Gupta
Monday, February $8^{th}$ 2021

Today’s content ☀

housekeeping
about studying economics
some main principles

Who am I? 👀

A PhD student of Economics at Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University (ANU).
Research about trade and industry, in particular how trade and investment policy shape Indonesian manufacturing industry.
Ocassionally in online portals and personal
An ocassional gamer, campsite musician and sometimes .

About the content of BE4158 📚

This course is based on .
covered are principle of microeconomics:
- Supply and demand
- the market and its limitation
- strategic thinking
and macroeconomics:
- GDP, inflation, unemployment, the government
- What does it mean for business
The content is very similar with Mankiw (2009) available at your .
books can be useful but are not required.

Some expectations from student

No prior knowledge is required.
Please be active and ask questions.
Good internet connection is assumed.
Good english is assumed and expected to be used thoroughly.
No cheating! Especially during exams.

Some rules

The lectures will be about 1.5 - 2 hours length.
I expect all students to pay attention.
- I would greatly appreciate you turning on your cams.
There will be a small quizzes in the middle of each class.
- make sure you pay attention.
You are welcome to go off cam and AFK at any time you like.
Feel free to interrupt my class with questions.
- alternatively, you can use chat if you are shy, or ask me later thru e-mail.

Structure of this course

week 1: introduction
- housekeeping
- some principles
week 2: supply and demand
- supply and demand curves
- perfect market equilibrium
week 3: Meddling with the market
- tax and quantity control
- price elasticity
week 4: firm problem
- production function
- marginal cost and average cost
- perfect competition

Structure of this course

week 5: Monopoly & oligopoly
- price discrimination
- game theory intro
week 6: Externalities & public goods
- deviation from perfect market
- policies that work
week 7: Welfare
- Poverty & inequality
- firms under different welfare setting

*** MIDTERM EXAM ***

Structure of this course

week 8: Macro basics
- accounting and growth
- inflation and international imbalances
week 9: GDP, inflation and unemployment
- Measuring economy and price
- unemployment
week 12: Long run growth
- Dynamics of economic growth
- Aggregate demand and supply
week 11: Fiscal policy
- demand shock
- the state budget

Structure of this course

week 12: Financial system
- Banks and money
- The central bank
week 13: Monetary policy
- interest rate
- central bank instruments
week 14: international economies
- trade policy
- international capital and exchange rate

Exams etc ✍🏾

evaluation	covers	%
quiz	everyday, best of 10	20
midterm exam	first 7 meetings	40
final exam	last 7 meetings	40

Only your best 10 will be used for graded quiz out of 14 meetings.
- the quiz will be given by the end of every lecture.
A bit of an intern quiz in the middle of each meeting, ungraded.
Slides should be enough to get a good grade.
However, to get an A, you should master the principle.

Some tools

All course materials are accessible through lentera and in pdf.
All announcement will be posted on lentera and google classroom.
- I believe it will patch through your Petra e-mail as well.
- Feel free to let me know what’s best for your learning.
The course is also available at my website, .
- It is in html format so you don’t have to download.
- Also can be viewed on your phone.
I will update the course on a weekly basis.

Some tools

The mid-lecture pop quiz (ungraded) will be conducted via poll everywhere.
- Please prepare a tab in your browser to
- You can also use your smartphone’s browser.
The tool for the end-lecture quiz (graded) is still being explored.
- we will test by the end of today’s lecture.
- We can also use google form.
- You are free to let me know your preference.

Questions?

A bit about you

Now let’s appoint a class rep!

for now, class rep’s responsibility is to just administering attendance.
any student is allowed to contact me directly.

About economics

Why economics?

Contrary to what normal people think, economics is not about (just) money.
Economics is all about making optimal decision under scarcity.
We use math principle to optimise our decision making.
This course is not going to dig too deep into the world of economic principles.
This course does not provide answers to your question: It teach how to use economic framework to shape your question.

Some questions asked by economists

How to best tackle climate change?
Is minimum wage good?
Should we introduce tax holiday to firms?
Should the government increase expenditure by more tax or more debt?
Should we introduce Universal Basic Income?
How to evaluate government program?
Should we ban mineral export?
can we sustain economic growth?
what to do during economic crisis?

Principles of Economics 💰

People make choices

because resources are scarce

resource can be anything you use to produce.
Money is the most mainstream limited resource.
- Buy only one holiday package.
- Buy only one portion of nasi goreng.
But there are other resources worth noting.
- There’s only one holiday season in a year.
- Two nasi gorengs would be too much for my stomach.

The true cost of something is its opportunity cost

money is just one type of cost.
The true cost of taking a holiday to Hong Kong is going somewhere else.
Your holiday can be spent on learning new stuff.
What is the cost of doing your degree?
- Going straight to work and get experiences.
- Doing other degrees (biology, chemistry, etc).
- enjoy life.
essentially, opportunity cost of something is something else you gave up to get it.

Pop quiz

Thinking at the margin

The principle of opportunity cost leads to a marginal thinking.
Understand your status quo, and think what action you can do to add a little improvement from it.
If you have two hours to study or play, how will you divide it?
- what if there’s an exam tommorow?
- If you are tired of studying, would you study more?

Specialisation and gains from trade

During your daily time, you make decisions on allocating how much time to study and to cook, among other things.
Since you will die if you don’t eat, you can’t allocate 0 hour to cook.
On the other hand, there are those who are very good cook and will cook for you for a little money.
In this case, it may be better if you spend 0 hour to cook, and order food from these chefs.
Trade is the reason why I can study economics: I don’t have to study how to be a doctor. I will just go to the hospital if I need a medical service.

Specialisation and gains from trade

Extending to firm level, many outsource part of their business from a third party.
- buying office probably better than developing our own softwares.
- why make our own server if we can use ?
- Use tokopedia instead of making your own e-store.
We can easily extend this to a country level:
- Japan makes car because they cannot plant palm oil.

Incentives matter

People move to cities because there are more opportunities there.
People will buy cheaper products given the same price.
incentives are not always about money:
- You study more on the subjects you like.

“ada gula ada semut”

Market and intervention

often times, market incentives are enough.
However, intervention is often used.
- education is an example where government intervene heavily.
- Gojek used subsidy to incentivies drivers and users.
Intervention may be temporary.
- The COVID-19 relieve bill (PEN) will likely stop after the pandemic.
- Gojek’s subsidy is removed once they reach economies of scale.

Things tend to move to equilibrium

When there is an incentive to do something, there will be more and more people exploit it.
As more people do it, the incentive decreases to a point where it is not worth it anymore.
examples:
- City becomes more crowded (and costly to live in).
- Stock price stops growing few moments after its IPO.
- Countries’ economic growth reduced after they get rich.
Movement towards equilibrium, however, varies.
- short run vs long run.
- individual vs aggregate.

Conclusion

We will see how these principles come up again and again as we delve deeper into the course.
The principle will be carried over to your overall degree, and life in general.
I am not trying to make you an economist, but the principles are very useful.

Testing Graded quiz

Housekeeping!

Joy is the class rep.
We’ll use Zoom over Google Meet.
Quizizz is used for everyday lecture.
what else?

Next week: Supply and demand

Persiapan workshop menggunakan Zotero

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 11:46:09 +1100

Menggunakan Zotero di dalam penulisan ilmiah

Krisna Gupta
Ketua Komisi Ekonomi Ditlitka 2020/2021
Australian National University

Slide apa ini?

Instruksi untuk menginstall Zotero, salah satu reference manager untuk menulis artikel ilmiah. Zotero akan digunakan dalam workshop.
Detil Workshop:
- Waktu: 16 Januari 2021, 16.00 WIB
- Lokasi: LINK ZOOM
kenapa zotero:
- gratis (the most important)
- mudah diinstall
- Dibuat oleh organisasi nirlaba
- bekerja juga di google docs
Dokumentasi zotero dapat dibaca di sini

Our goal

Membuat reference manager yang cantiq dan otomatis.
membuat menjadi plain text agar mudah digabung.
di akhir workshop, peserta harus mengumpulkan file word di drive ini

What you need

Laptop / komputer pribadi
- contoh ini menggunakan windows 10
Zotero account
- bikin di sini
Program zotero
reference list untuk latihan

Download Zotero for Windows & Chrome plug-in

Klik link ini, anda akan melihat seperti ini

download installer-nya (kiri), lalu install plug-innya utk browser kesayangan anda (kanan).

Install Zotero

install zotero seperti anda menginstall program-program lain.
buka zotero, lalu login dengan akun yang sudah anda buat.

“set up syncing” untuk pakai cloud, “install a zotero connector” hanya jika anda belum install browser plug-in

Cek word plugin

Zotero menginstall plugin microsoft word secara otomatis ketika anda sudah selesai install zotero.
dicek aja. Buka word, anda akan melihat tab zotero.

Cek google docs plugin

Untuk menggunakan plugin zotero di google docs, anda harus membuka aplikasi zoteronya.
pluginnya ada di atas, mirip di microsoft word.

Cek google docs plugin

Extra step jika e-mail zotero anda tidak sama dengan e-mail google drive anda.
tambahkan e-mail google drive anda di akun zotero.
buka link ini
masukkan e-mail google drive anda di situ, lalu klik “add”
lakukan verifikasi.

Agenda Workshop

Input referensi secara manual dan menggunakan browser plug-in.
edit metadata.
export library.
in-text citation dan reference list di microsoft word.
in-text citation dan reference list di google docs word.
remove metadata / create plain text.

Other notes

siapkan referensi sekitar 5 referensi. kita akan latihan dengan referensi anda masing-masing.
kalau bisa macem-macem jenisnya: ada yang artikel jurnal, report, website, database dll.
Estimasi workshop selama 1 jam - 1.5 jam tergantung diskusi.
See you then!

A small trip to Tidbinbilla Natural Reserve in Canberra, Australia

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 09:04:02 +1100

Traveling isn’t really my forte. However, The year-end free entry to Tidbinbilla Natural Reserve can’t really be missed can’t it?

Tidbinbilla is a natural reserve in Canberra, Australia. Reachable from the city center by car, and you would prolly need around 40 minutes driving to get there. Here, you can walk in many bushwalking trail from the very easy, 1-2 km to the hard one with rocky and hilly climb. You will be able to see many Australian vegetation like eucalyptus and also its animals like birds, Kangaroos, Wallabies, Koala and Platypus.

Tidbinbilla is a very huge place. To explore all, you will need a whole day and a good prep. Check out its full map over here.

Me and wife only aim for its eucalyptus forest and a place called Sanctuary.

We first come to the visitor center to grab some maps, information and coffee. Maps and infos are necessary since you will prolly get no connection once you step inside the park. From here, you can actually go to a few walking trails to see Emu and Kangaroos. We actually saw both without even going to the trail!

We drive to the sanctuary from the visitor center.

First up, eucalyptus forest

We took the Koala Path, the easier bit.

From here, we went to the sanctuary. Unfortunately, no sight of Platypus 😢

According to the ranger, most animals including Platypus are shy and learn to avoid human. They can only be seen around early in the morning or later afternoon (something like 6pm-ish). Additionally, Platypus are said to be active around spring time. So I might need to go back here later in the different time!

Trying three cool keyboards: Logitech MX Keys, Razer BlackWidow and Razer Huntsman

Tue, 29 Dec 2020 19:31:47 +1100

This semester has been incredibly busy. Lots of work, a for one of my dissertation milestones, and teaching. On the teaching front, I was fortunate that during the pandemic, when the university cut staff heavily, I was among those kept on. The problem is that with fewer hires, I got buried in marking – checking assignments and final exams. Very stressful.

As the semester ended, so came Black Friday + Cyber Monday + Boxing Day – a string of discount days in Australia. I figured, since I rarely splurge, I could treat myself this time.

Among the discounted items, electronics got massive markdowns. Since I had some cash, I decided to try buying a keyboard to replace my current one. I’d been using the , a very sleek and comfortable keyboard. Based on forums, mechanical keyboards are supposedly better for typing because they provide better feedback. You don’t have to press as deep, making them more comfortable for typing. Having never tried typing on a mechanical keyboard, I thought I’d give it a shot.

I tried buying keyboards at , a major electronics retailer in Australia. Prices are fairly competitive, there are many locations, and the Belconnen store lets you try different switches in-person. Best of all, if you don’t like the product after a week or two, you can exchange it for something else. That’s the power of .

Thanks to the exchange policy, I got to try 3 different keyboards. I browsed various switches recommended for typing and bought based on discounts. The first keyboard I tried was the , mainly because I’m a huge Logitech fan. Their products are expensive but genuinely good. Unfortunately, it didn’t suit me. So I switched to a Razer product, the Razer BlackWidow. Still not quite right, so I ended up with the Razer Huntsman. Here are the specs:

Keyboard	Logitech MX Keys	Logitech G512 GX Brown	Razer BlackWidow	Razer Huntsman
Switches	Scissor
Feel	Tactile	Bump	Clicky	Clicky
Actuation force (g)	37.1	50	50	35.5
Actuation travel (mm)	1.26	1.9	1.74	1.56
Total travel (mm)	1.84	4.0	4.0	3.5
typing speed (WPM)	73	68	73	80

Some notes:

Actuation force: how hard you need to press the key. Higher means more finger fatigue during long typing sessions, but also fewer accidental key presses.
Actuation travel: how far you need to press before the keystroke registers. Higher means deeper press required.
Total travel: how far the key can be pressed to the bottom. Higher means deeper.
I tested typing speed using at medium difficulty for 3 minutes. WPM = Words per Minute.
Other figures from , except Logitech specs which are from the .

I’ll give my review and reasons why I didn’t like the Logitech G512 and Razer BlackWidow. I’m currently still trying the Huntsman and hoping it works out. I’ll focus on typing and switches, since switches are the main reason I tried mechanical keyboards. Macros are the most useful feature beyond that. I’m not particularly interested in RGB.

Note that I’m not a keyboard enthusiast. I’m just a regular user who browses around. I read various reviews from Rtings, Tom’s Hardware, etc. and watched YouTube videos from channels like RandomFrankP and Hardware Canucks. For serious reviews, I’d recommend those sources.

Logitech MX Keys

What I love	What I hate
Thin and compact	Programmable only for F1-F12 keys
Great for typing	Expensive
Wireless is superb
Battery lasts forever
Logitech Flow is amazing

In early COVID-19 days in Australia (around early March), my university allowed reallocating part of research student funds to purchase Work From Home (WFH) equipment, since campus was closing and all staff and students were required to work from home. Research funds are typically used for attending academic conferences, which obviously weren’t happening anytime soon due to the pandemic.

I chose the Logitech MX Keys as my home keyboard. No particular reason – I’m just a Logitech fan.

It turned out to be wonderful. The switches feel better than my office keyboard, in my opinion. Several standout features: First, it’s wireless, supporting both a dongle (2.4 GHz) and Bluetooth. The wireless can use a unified dongle, so the keyboard and mouse (also Logitech) share one dongle. Bluetooth can connect to 3 devices – other computers, tablets, and smartphones. Very helpful when I need to type on a tablet or phone. The wireless setup also keeps the desk clean. Switching between the wireless dongle and 3 Bluetooth devices is effortless because there are physical buttons on the keyboard.

Second, Logitech has a technology called Flow. If I copy text on my laptop, I can paste it on my tablet. Super helpful.

Third, the keyboard is very thin, reasonably compact, and has excellent build quality. The desk feels spacious, and hand position is comfortable because the keyboard is thin enough that you don’t need to raise your fingers high. No finger fatigue typing here since the actuation point is short and the force required is minimal.

Logitech G512 GX-Brown

What I love	What I hate
Fairly affordable	Cable is terrible
	The switches
	No macros

This was the first keyboard I bought – my first-ever mechanical keyboard. It was reasonably priced for a mechanical keyboard and on sale at the time. Being my first, I started cheap. Didn’t dare go expensive right away.

The GX-Brown switch is Logitech’s tactile switch without the click sound typical of mechanicals. The keyboard sends a signal when the plates connect upon pressing. Unfortunately, it’s hard to see in this gif I made from images on the Logitech website.

After trying it out, typing with the G512 was tiring and didn’t suit me. My fingers got sore, and my palm area near the pinky ached. I think because I’m used to thin keyboards, I always press all the way to the bottom. But with mechanicals, you’re supposed to hover – you only need to press to the actuation point.

From the table above, this keyboard (and mechanical keyboards in general) requires slightly more force. Probably not noticeable for short typing sessions, but after typing all day, you definitely feel it.

This keyboard is also much taller than the MX Keys. My hand position felt awkward, so I had to buy a fairly tall wrist rest to keep my hands level. Somewhat more comfortable, but still sore during extended typing. The keyboard height is compounded by the tall keycaps and longer travel distance. The differences look small on paper, but over a full day of typing, they add up.

As for speed, my typing speed actually dropped with this one, even though I switched to mechanical for better typing. Already uncomfortable AND slower – a truly bad investment. Luckily I could still exchange it.

I decided to try clicky switches, since supposedly clicky feels better and you can feel the actuation point more clearly, so you don’t have to press as deep.

Razer BlackWidow

What I love	What I hate
Razer Green switch is amazing	Good value for money
Fully programmable
RGB is wild

I exchanged for the Razer BlackWidow. This was my first Razer product. It has clicky switches – they make a clicking sound when pressed. In the gif below from Razer’s official website, you can see that when the key is pressed, a plate hits another plate inside. That’s when the keystroke registers and the computer detects the key press.

You can also see that the plate makes contact without needing to press the keycap all the way to the bottom.

The clicky switch is indeed better than the half-hearted tactile one. Truly satisfying to type with that click-click sound. But this keyboard still wasn’t perfectly comfortable. Fingers still got sore. Based on specs, this keyboard has the same travel distance and actuation force as the GX-Brown. I was probably still bottoming out despite the click feedback.

That said, the click-click sound is genuinely enjoyable. Makes you feel like you’re typing something really important. The downside, of course, is that it’s fairly noisy. Could be annoying in an office. My wife said the sound was noticeable, though not too disruptive – but hard to use while she’s sleeping¹.

This keyboard is fully programmable, so every key can be remapped and the options are extensive: you can set keys to alt, shift, launch programs or websites, and most importantly, store text snippets.

This keyboard is better than the Logitech GX-Brown. In my opinion, the Razer Green Switch is one of the best switches around, especially once you get used to the floating typing style. But there’s a learning curve if you’re coming from thin membrane keyboards. Once you adapt though, it’s great.

Razer Huntsman

What I love	What I hate
Razer Purple switch is amazing	Expensive
Fully programmable
RGB is wild

The last keyboard I tried is the Razer Huntsman. It uses new technology called opto-mechanical. While previous switches use electrical signals from metal plates, this keyboard uses laser to send signals from keyboard to computer. When a key is pressed, the laser connects to its receiver, sending a signal that the key has been pressed.

According to Razer, sending signals via laser makes it faaaaaaaaaar faster than metal plates. But it probably doesn’t make a real difference, especially for an old person like me whose reflexes are already snail-paced.

What drew me to try this is that it has lighter actuation force and shorter travel distance than regular mechanicals, while retaining the same clicky feeling as the Razer Green switch. This should be more comfortable on the fingers for typing, especially for someone just starting with mechanical keyboards.

The clicky feel isn’t quite as satisfying as the BlackWidow, in my opinion. But it’s still nice. More importantly, my hands have been fine so far. Typing feels better here than with the Green switch. Hopefully I’ll stick with this one.

In terms of speed, this switch has given me the fastest typing speed so far (80 WPM), even faster than the MX Keys at 73 WPM. It really is more comfortable to type on. Let’s see how it holds up over the coming weeks. So far, the Huntsman is the most comfortable of the keyboards I’ve tried.

Conclusion

Typing on the MX Keys was already very comfortable. Even though you bottom out every keystroke (it’s so thin), your hands don’t get sore. The wireless features – switching between devices and copy-paste across them – are incredibly useful. The unified receiver keeps the desk clean with just one dongle for keyboard and mouse. Logitech really is the best at making office products.

But typing with clicky-clicky switches brings a joy I can’t quite explain. Mechanical keyboards also have extensive macros that are super useful for storing frequently-used commands and methods for coding. Maybe I just wasn’t used to thick keyboards after years on laptops and the MX Keys. So far I haven’t fully felt the mechanical advantage over MX Keys (aside from the click-clack). Oh, and the RGB grows on you over time.

Update: the Razer Huntsman has become my daily driver. After learning to type properly on a mechanical keyboard, Razer’s clicky switches are genuinely fantastic. My fastest speed is on the Huntsman. It’s lighter than typical clicky mechanical switches, so it’s decent for newcomers. The full programmability is also excellent if you need it. I think Razer has the best software for key programming and macros. I do miss the MX Keys’ versatile wireless capability, but programmability and clicky switches won me over.

Also read about my experience with the Yellow switch on the Razer Blackwidow V3 Mini .

My WFH workspace = the bedroom. Can’t help it – renting a small unit to save money. ↩︎

Mengeksplorasi & mengelaborasi data serta sumber bacaan

Mon, 14 Dec 2020 01:20:32 +1100

Litka

Sun, 13 Dec 2020 23:36:14 +1100

Mengeksplorasi & mengelaborasi

data

serta sumber bacaan

Krisna Gupta ft. Denny Irawan
Dirlitka PPI Dunia
krisna.netlify.app

Siapa tuh Krisna Gupta 👀

Ketua Komisi Ekonomi.

Sering dipanggil Imed.

Economics PhD Student di Australian National University.

Double degree Master in Econ dari UI / VU Amsterdam.

Meneliti dampak kebijakan perdagangan dan investasi.

Dosen Politeknik APP Jakarta.

Hobby ngeblog, nyanyi, ngefans L’arcenCiel.

beberapa riset dan publikasi 😎

Tentang hari ini 👍

literatur
Data
Diskusi

Literatur

kata kunci: relevan

Untuk menulis 10 ribu kata, anda harus membaca 100 ribu kata!

$$\max_{B,T,S} \{f(B,T,S): B+T+S \leq 24\}$$ $B>T>S$
Baca $\Rightarrow$ Tulis $\Rightarrow$ Speak
JANGAN KEBALIK!
hehe

Kenapa melakukan tinjauan literatur

Kita tidak bisa meneliti sesuatu yang kita tidak tau!
- mendapatkan informasi dan konteks
- mencari gap (target, debat, etc)
Meyakinkan pembaca bahwa tulisan kita relevan:
- terupdate
- penting

Mengenal konteks

Selalu ingat bahwa kita menulis tentang Indonesia.
Karena itu, anda memerlukan pendekatan konteks yang punya ekstra layer:
- Apa SDGs yang relevan.
- Bagaimana perkembangannya di Indonesia.
- Apakah akan tercapai secara sustainable di 2045.

Mulai dari mana?

United Nations (UN)
- ada website yang user friendly.
- ada report (download) hasil kerjasama dengan Bappenas.
Dokumen milik pemerintah.
- Selain Bappenas, lihat juga lembaga terkait.
- Peraturan perundang-undangan yang terkait.
Literatur ternama di bidang masing-masing.

Mulai dari mana?

Wikipedia adalah sahabat kita semua.
- gunakan sebagai pijakan, bukan literatur untuk disitasi.
- berlaku juga untuk informasi seperti blog orang lain.
Tanya rekan sejawat atau editor.

Data

Mengapa kita menggunakan data?

Data dapat menyampaikan konteks dengan efisien.
- pembaca orang sibuk. makanya harus efisien.
Data sangat powerful untuk menyampaikan pesan.
Data menunjukkan seberapa paham kita dengan isu.
Data biasanya cukup obyektif.

Bagaimana menggunakan data?

data bukanlah cerita! Ia memperkuat.
- Data adalah support, bukan inti tulisan anda.
- lebih baik jika sudah ada kerangka berpikir.
Data tidak harus yang berupa statistik.
- bisa juga referensi seperti pasal atau argumen orang lain.
Data harus relevan!
- jangan pasang data yang anda ga pake.
Hati-hati dengan informasi yang partisan.

Beberapa sumber yang dapat digunakan.

ada website yang user friendly.
Website-nya World Bank juga cukup user friendly:
- SDGs
- maupun World Development Indicators
Tanya kolega atau editor.

Tools untuk visualisasi.

Microsoft Excel / Google sheet adalah tool paling gampang dan mainstream.
- jika anda nulis bareng, usahakan pake tools yang semua bisa pake.
Hanya pakai pie chart untuk data fraction.
Gunakan grafik garis untuk menunjukkan trend (biasanya data time series).

Mengambil visualisasi pihak lain.

Jika anda mengambil visualisasi dari publikasi pihak lain, selalu sertakan sumber.
jangan lupa, yang penting adalah data support argumen. Datanya boleh pinjem, tapi argumennya harus punya anda.

Bagaimana jika tidak ada data yang mendukung cerita kita?

Cari terus sampai dapat!
Jika masih tidak ada, be humble! Alim == Pendiam
Bagaimana jika data yang kita dapatkan malah melawan argumen kita?

*then, change your mind*
Menulis adalah proses pendewasaan logika
Makes mistakes is an important part of life

The End

Kebijakan untuk meningkatkan partisipasi perusahaan-perusahaan Indonesia dalam rantai pasok global

Fri, 04 Dec 2020 21:34:47 +1100

Selengkapnya lihat di sini

Revisiting 3-period intertemporal consumption model: work, retire, afterlife

Wed, 02 Dec 2020 10:48:50 +1100

I discussed this theme in my medium blog(https://medium.com/@imedkrisna/extending-a-simple-2-period-consumption-problem-the-third-period-afterlife-9223cf5467d). I recycle this with a bit of an addition to a more generalised utility function and exploiting python this time so I don’t have to do it by hand, which is nice. One reason why I left Medium ha ha ha.

Work and retirement

It started with a standard, very simple undergrad style intertemporal consumption model which demonstrate consumption smoothing

$$ \begin{equation} \max_{C_1,C_2} u(C_1)+\beta u(C_2) \\ \begin{split} s.t.: \ & C_1 = Y - s \\ & C_2 = s(1+r) \end{split} \end{equation} $$

I extend the above model with a third period: the afterlife.

Bekerja, pensiun dan masuk surga.

Modelnya diekstensi jadi:

$$ \begin{equation} \max_{C_1,C_2} u(C_1)+\beta u(C_2)+\delta u(C_3) \\ \begin{split} s.t.: \ & C_1 = Y -s -p \\ & C_2 = s(1+r) \\ & C_3 = p(1+x) \\ & s \geq 0 \end{split} \end{equation} $$

Seperti dapat dilihat, kali ini kita punya 3 $C$, di mana $C_3$ adalah konsumsi di akherat. Ketika masih di periode satu, kita punya opsi tidak hanya menyisihkan pendapatan $Y$ untuk menabung sebanyak $s$, tapi juga beramal sebanyak $p$. Tidak seperti tabungan, amal tersebut tidak dapat kita gunakan untuk konsumsi di periode 2. Akan tetapi, kita akan menikmati hasil amal kita ketika sudah meninggal. Di akherat, kita akan konsumsi sebanyak $p(1+x)$ di mana $x$ adalah seberapa besar amalam kita berlipat ganda di surga nanti.

dengan substitusi, constraintnya bisa disederhanakan menjadi:

$$ C_1 + \frac{C_2}{(1+r)} + \frac{C_3}{1+x} = Y $$

Optimisasinya tidak berbeda jauh dengan dua periode:

$$ \mathcal{L}(C_t)=u(C_1)+\beta u(C_2)+\delta u(C_3) + \lambda (Y - C_1 - \frac{C_2}{(1+r)} - \frac{C_3}{1+x}) \\ \begin{split} F.O.C.: \ & \frac{d\mathcal{L}}{dC_1}=u'(C_1)-\lambda=0 \\ & \frac{d\mathcal{L}}{dC_2}=\beta u'(C_2)-\lambda \frac{1}{(1+r)}=0 \\ & \frac{d\mathcal{L}}{dC_3}=\delta u'(C_3)-\lambda \frac{1}{(1+x)}=0 \end{split} $$

Dari F.O.C. yang pertama didapat:

$$ u'(C_1) = \lambda $$

Ganti semua $\lambda$:

$$ \begin{align*} u'(C_2)&=\frac{u'(C_1)}{\beta (1+r)} \\ u'(C_3)&=\frac{u'(C_1)}{\delta (1+x)} \end{align*} $$

Supaya bisa diitung dengan mudah, kita kasihkan standard CRRA utility function $u(C_t)=\frac{C_t^{1-\gamma}}{1-\gamma}$. Dengan begini, problem 3 periode di atas dapat kita selesaikan. Kita bisa saja selesaikan dengan tidak terlalu sulit menggunakan pensil dan kertas, tapi kali ini mari kita manfaatkan Python untuk menghitung kelanjutan dari persamaan di atas. Pertama definisikan fungsi utilitas dan turunannya:

# kodenya boleh ngopas dari quantecon
def u(c, γ):
 '''utility function'''
 if γ ==1:
 return np.log(c)
 else:
 return c**(1-γ)/(1-γ)

def u_prime(c, γ):
 '''Derivative of utility'''
 if γ == 1:
 return 1 / c
 else:
 return c**(-γ)

Kemudian kita dapat manfaatkan SciPy untuk menghitung persamaan konsumsi 3 periode di atas. Ada beberapa parameter yang digunakan di problem ini, berikut artinya:

$\gamma$ = kadar takut risiko kita $\delta$ = faktor diskon surga. semakin besar, semakin agamis $\beta$ = faktor diskon periode dua. Semakin besar, semakin penyabar. Kalo kecil berarti tipe YOLO. $Y$ = Income / penghasilan semasa muda. $r$ = tingkat suku bunga $z$ = seberapa besar amalan kita dilipat-gandakan oleh Yang Maha Kuasa.

Saya pake parameter-parameter di bawah ini karena iseng aja. Tentu saja anda bisa install python, kopas kodenya dan utik-utik sendiri parameternya sesuai karakteristik anda.

from scipy.optimize import fsolve
γ=2.00001
δ=0.95
β=0.9
Y=150
r=0.1
z=0.1

def func(c):
 return[u_prime(c[1],γ)-u_prime(c[0],γ)/β/(1+r),
 u_prime(c[2],γ)-u_prime(c[0],γ)/δ/(1+z),
 c[0]+c[1]/(1+r)+c[2]/(1+z)-Y]

root=fsolve(func,[1,1,1])
data = [root, u(root,γ),(root/sum(root))]
tabel=pd.DataFrame(data, columns=["Masa muda", "Pensiun","Surga"])
tabel['Variabel']=['C','U','Share']
tabel = tabel[['Variabel', "Masa muda", "Pensiun","Surga"]]
tabel

	Variabel	Masa muda	Pensiun	Surga
0	C	52.931443	52.666122	54.109290
1	U	-0.018891	-0.018987	-0.018480
2	Share	0.331429	0.329767	0.338804

Dengan parameter di atas, dapat dilihat bahwa model ini mengarah ke orang yang sangat-sangat menjunjung tinggi comsumption smoothing. Penghasilan yang ia dapatkan $(Y)$ dibagi rata untuk konsumsi, menabung dan juga beramal. Kombinasi ini memiliki total utility yang so pasti maksimal. Ingat, yang dimaksimalkan bukanlah $u$ untuk masing-masing periode tetapi $u(C_1)+\beta u(C_2)+ \delta u(C_3)$.

Angka ini bisa berubah tidak hanya berdasarkan karakteristik si individu (alias parameter $\beta$ dan $\delta$) tetapi juga tergantung dengan kondisi di luar seperti besarnya tingkat suku bunga $r$. seandainya saya naikin suku bunga, ceteris paribus, kira-kira apa yang akan terjadi?

r=0.4
root=fsolve(func,[1,1,1])
data = [root, u(root,γ),(root/sum(root))]
tabel=pd.DataFrame(data, columns=["Masa muda", "Pensiun","Surga"])
tabel['Variabel']=['C','u','Share']
tabel = tabel[['Variabel', "Masa muda", "Pensiun","Surga"]]
tabel

	Variabel	Masa muda	Pensiun	Surga
0	C	54.922854	61.650715	56.145014
1	u	-0.018206	-0.016220	-0.017810
2	Share	0.317990	0.356943	0.325066

Secara umum semua naik karena kali ini tabungannya menghasilkan lebih banyak uang untuk konsumsi. Namun dapat dilihat bahwa share-nya jadi banyakan tabungan dibandingkan konsumsi (“Masa muda”) ataupun beramal (“Surga”). Hasilnya akan lebih kelihatan jika misalnya kita naikkan suku bunga tapi menurunkan $Y$. Ia akan punya total lifetime income yang sepadan, tapi akan lebih banyak mengalokasikan ke menabung karena dengan suku bunga yang tinggi, opportunity cost dari konsumsi jadi tinggi.

Nah sekarang bagaimana jika ada argumen bahwa amal kita akan dibayarkan dengan berkali lipat bahkan sampai tidak terhingga? Artinya, parameter yang harus kita utik-utik adalah $z$. Yuk dicoba.

z=99
root=fsolve(func,[1,1,1])
data = [root, u(root,γ),(root/sum(root))]
tabel=pd.DataFrame(data, columns=["Masa muda", "Pensiun","Surga"])
tabel['Variabel']=['C','u','Share']
tabel = tabel[['Variabel', "Masa muda", "Pensiun","Surga"]]
tabel

	Variabel	Masa muda	Pensiun	Surga
0	C	78.978540	88.653140	769.778825
1	u	-0.012661	-0.011279	-0.001299
2	Share	0.084252	0.094572	0.821176

Menurut model ini, maka yang terjadi adalah kita akan menghabiskan tabungan kita untuk amal. Seperti anda lihat di tabel di atas, share amal tiba-tiba naik jadi 83% dari total pendapatan. Yang lucu adalah total income yang dihabiskan di dunia jadi ikut naik. Tentu saja ini mustahil ha ha ha. Tapi jelas naiknya gara-gara “bunga” yang didapatkan dari amal. Bukannya mustahil sih. Bisa saja kan amalan kita di dunia dinikmati sebagian ketika kita masih hidup? Makanya guys jangan lupa berbuat baik.

Tentu saja model ini ngaco

Jangan lupa bahwa ini model yang sangat sederhana sekali dan banyak caveat-nya. Saya sudah tuliskan beberapa di blog medium di atas. Bagaimanapun juga, banyak juga peluang untuk memperlebarnya. Misalnya, dibikin $p$ boleh negatif dengan konsekuensi $Y$ naik, yang bisa kita terjemahkan sebagai perilaku korupsi: Berdosa demi meningkatkan pendapatan dan akan dibayar di neraka nanti. Ini cuma satu contoh. Ada banyak aplikasi lain dengan model yang lebih ribet yang bisa kita buat. hahha.

Yaudah segini dulu. semoga tulisan ini menghibur dan menginspirasi anda untuk beramal dan berbuat kebajikan bagi masyarakat!

Litrev

Fri, 06 Nov 2020 21:03:23 +1100

Tinjauan literatur

Kuliah Tamu Seminar Ekonomi Internasional

Senin, 9 November 2020

Krisna ‘Imed’ Gupta
Australian National University
PhD Candidate in Economics

A bit about me 😃

PhD student at Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University. My working thesis is the impact of trade and investment policy to Indonesian firms.
Lecturer at
- Statistics and international finance
Teaching Assistant includes:
- PPIE, UI: Macroeconomics 2, Microeconomics 2
- CBE, ANU: Macro 3, Micro 2, Applied forecasting
Sparetime activity includes blogging, twitter-ranting, casual sports & singing

beberapa riset dan publikasi 😎

Tentang hari ini 👀

Tips and trick
Some tools
diskusi

Silakan gunakan raise hand atau chat jika ingin bertanya di tengah jalan

Slide dapat diakses di ,

pake ini juga bisa $\rightarrow$

First up: a quiz 🤣

please navigate to:

Masukan username anda

Mulai memilih!

Literature Review!

What, Why, How

Literature review?

Peneliti pemula seringkali bingung bagaimana memulai tinjauan literatur
Sebenarnya, tinjauan literatur (dan referencing) adalah skill yang kita perlukan untuk semua jenis pekerjaan!

Literature review is actually an investigation!

Untuk menulis 10 ribu kata, anda harus membaca 100 ribu kata!

$$\max_{B,T,S} \{f(B,T,S): B+T+S \leq 24\}$$ $B>T>S$
Baca $\Rightarrow$ Tulis $\Rightarrow$ Speak
JANGAN KEBALIK!
hehe

Kenapa melakukan tinjauan literatur

Kita tidak bisa meneliti sesuatu yang kita tidak tau!
- mendapatkan konteks
- metode termutakhir
- mencari gap di literatur: metode / konteks
Meyakinkan pembaca bahwa riset kita relevan:
- terupdate
- penting
Bonus: membantu mengarahkan yang baru mau terjun ke bidang kita!

Beberapa kesalahan pemula

Problem	Komentar
Kurang terorganisir	fokus ke isu, bukan paper. Gunakan mindmap dapat membantu
Kurang relevan	Seminal paper biasanya jadul. Penting, tapi fokus ke yang lebih baru
Kurang kritis	Ingat, anda bukan hanya merangkum, tapi juga mencari gap
Takut salah	Mahasiswa adalah tempatnya salah. Yang penting kita belajar dari situ

Mulai dari mana?

Kata kunci-nya adalah relevan!
- meneliti tentang Kazakhstan bagi audience Indonesia mungkin kurang rame
Paling mudah adalah mulai dari isu yang relevan dengan kita:
- Misal, sesuatu yang kita sering dengar (misalnya korupsi daging sapi, omnibus law)
- Bisa juga yang relevan dengan kerjaan kita
Bisa juga mulai dari metode.

Mulai dari mana?

Sebagian besar pertanyaan di bidang ilmu ekonomi adalah tentang hubungan dua variabel:

Does X causes Y?

$$ Y = X\beta + \varepsilon $$

Kita bisa mulai mencari menggunakan kata kunci Y atau X, atau keduanya.

Mulai dari mana?

beberapa pertanyaan yang bisa dijawab, misalnya:
- $Y \Rightarrow X$ atau $X \Rightarrow Y$?
- bagaimana dengan $Z$?
- di Amerika, $X \Rightarrow Y$. Bagaimana dengan di Indonesia?
- apa lagi kira-kira?

Tabel dapat membantu proses berpikir kita

Author	Y	X	sign	context	method
Amiti & Konings 2007	TFP	input tariff	+	Indonesia, firm level	levpet, gravity
Kee, Nicita, Olarreaga 2009	import val	NTM count	+	global	cross-section gravity
Fugazza, Olarreaga, Ugarte 2017	export val	NTM count	+,-	Peru	gravity, firm size
Cadot et al 2015	export val	NTM count, Reg. dist.	+	global	gravity cross-section

Contoh di atas adalah pencarian yang berfokus pada $X$: Bagaimana Non-Tariff Measures (NTMs) mempengaruhi perdagangan dan produktivitas (dan lainnya kalau ada)

Diisi juga kontribusi atau gap

Author	+	-
Amiti & Konings 2007	Jurnal AER, konteks Indonesia, firm level, TFP	Tidak ada NTM
Kee, Nicita, Olarreaga 2009	Seminal utk AVE	Terlalu global dan makro
Fugazza, Olarreaga, Ugarte 2017	heterogenous firm, firm level	konteks Peru, export may not be best measure, no PPML
Cadot et al 2015	Seminal NTM, konsep regulatory distance	Cross section, terlalu makro

Saya dapat berkontribusi di konteks Indonesia, firm level dengan TFP. Trade policy measures adalah tariff dan NTMs. Measures untuk firm level export dapat dipakai untuk robustness. Data ada, metode ada, export lebih baik dimodelkan dengan PPML. Sip!

Mulai dari mana?

Literaturnya literatur: akan ada author(s) yang disebut berkali-kali oleh literatur yang anda sudah temukan.
- Trade context: Krugman, Melitz, Grossman & Helpman, Bernard, Kee, Cadot
- General equilibrium: Hertel, Horridge, McKibbin, Dixon, Costinot
- Indonesian context: Sjoholm, Hill, Aswicahyono, Patunru
Bisa juga tanya dosen

Mulai dari mana?

report lembaga penting seperti IMF, World Bank dan Kementerian/Lembaga.
textbook dan referensinya.
Google (scholar) sangat berguna karena repositori-nya sangat luas. Namun harus agak berhati-hati. Pastikan yang anda sitasi adalah yang peer-reviewed.
Mulai dari wikipedia jika anda bener-bener newb juga boleh. Jangan lupa lihat sitasi yang ada di Wikipedia, jangan Wikipedianya langsung ya.
Jika ragu, tanya pembimbing anda.

Final tips

Tinjauan literatur sangat penting dilakukan meskipun skripsi anda tidak punya bab berjudul “tinjauan literatur”
Baca bab literature review orang lain, dan coba bedah strukturnya
Minta tolong orang lain membaca bab literature review anda (kalau ada)
tanya dosen / pembimbing / teman anda yang pintar

butuh berapa referensi?

Rule of thumb saya: minimal 10 referensi utama di 5 tahun terakhir, tentang metode.
Dari 10 itu, ambil referensi mereka yang paling relevan (cek abstrak).
Gunakan referensi lain untuk setting konteks.
- Misalnya, saya pake untuk pembukaan saja, bukan metodenya.
Tapi jumlahnya kira-kira aja. Sebaiknya tanya pembimbing.

Tools you can use

Mindmap

Beberapa mindmap bisa digunakan, tapi favorit saya adalah connected papers ( )
connected papers akan menunjukkan interkoneksi antar artikel. Cara cepat untuk mengetahui jaringan sitasi di sebuah isu.
ukuran node menunjukkan besarnya sitasi, sementara ketebalan warna menunjukan keterbaruan.
contohnya ketika kita mencari
Menariknya, koneksi berbasis isu juga ditampilkan. Lebih keliatan jika kita cari artikel yang belum ada sitasinya. Misalnya

Menggunakan reference manager

Reference manager adalah piranti lunak yang sangat membantu dalam me-manage daftar pustaka kita.
Dengan Reference manager, kita bisa dengan cepat melakukan sitasi dan membuat daftar pustaka dengan format yang kita inginkan.
Reference manager juga membantu kita mengelompokan dan memasang tag di referensi-referensi kita.
Zotero dan Mendeley termasuk software gratisan yang paling terkenal. Google Scholar Library juga layak coba

Menggunakan google scholar

gunakan AND atau & untuk irisan, dan OR untuk *union*

Indonesia AND Australia # will show only Indonesia & AUstralia included

Indonesia OR Australia # will show results also when only one of them is present

Menggunakan google scholar

gunakan tanda petik untuk mencari satu rangkaian kata

"the case of indonesia"

gunakan author:"nama-author" untuk mencari karya peneliti tersebut

author:"Costinot"

gunakan `..` untuk memberi interval di pencarian kita

Indonesia AND Trade 2010..2018

Menggunakan google scholar

pakai tanda bintang untuk mencari lanjutan. Misalnya, indust* akan mencarikan industri, industry, industrial dan industrialisasi.
gunakan tanda tanya untuk mencari produk yang ejaannya berbeda. Misalnya, labo?r akan menemukan sesuatu yang ada kata labor dan labour
Trik asterisk juga bisa digunakan untuk ejaan berbeda, misalnya globali* akan menemukan globalization dan globalisation
Selengkapnya bisa google wildcard search

Google scholar dan Reference manager

Saya akan menunjukkan bagaimana cara melakukan sitasi langsung dari google scholar!
Sekalian sedikit demonstrasi pake advanced search
Kita mulai dengan mencari

Dan tools terakhir adalah....

No, seriously, your lecturer is your best tool!! Exploit him!!

Kesimpulan

Tinjauan literatur sejatinya adalah investigasi
Kata kuncinya adalah relevan!
Gunakan semua resources yang ada!
Jika bingung, tanya pembimbing

References

Lange, Cheryl. (N.D.). . Studysmarter research series. The University of Western Australia.
Rowland, DR. (N.D.). . The University of Queensland.

Strategi sukses meraih beasiswa pendidikan lanjut

Fri, 18 Sep 2020 09:00:00 +0700

webinar dan bedah buku bidang ekonomi Mewujudkan Indonesia 4.0: Kumpulan pemikiran pelajar Indonesia di Australia

Thu, 10 Sep 2020 13:30:00 +0700

Pada hari Kamis 10 September 2020, saya berkesempatan menjadi host sekaligus moderator di acara webinar dan bedah buku Mewujudkan Indonesia 4.0: Kumpulan pemikiran pelajar Indonesia di Australia. Acara ini terselenggara berkat kerjasama Perkumpulan Pelajar Indonesia di Australia atau PPI Australia dan Sobat Cyber Indonesia.

Acara pada hari ini adalah salah satu dari serangkaian acara grand launching buku Mewujudkan Indonesia 4.0: Kumpulan pemikiran pelajar Indonesia di Australia yang diterbitkan oleh Yayasan Pustaka Obor Indonesia. Grand Launching buku ini telah dilaksanakan di KBRI Australia dan di dunia maya tepat seminggu sebelumnya pada tanggal 3 September 2020. Kemudian, kami menyelenggarakan serangkaian acara bedah buku untuk setiap aspek atau bidang yang dibahas di buku ini. Jangan lewatkan rangkaian acara lainnya yang detilnya dapat anda lihat di Instagram PPI Australia di @ppiaustralia

Acara kali ini fokus pada aspek ekonomi, industri dan investasi dari buku ini. Beberapa narasumber yang turut berpartisipasi adalah:

Professor doctor Suharnomo, Dekan FEB Universitas Diponegoro sekaligus Ketua Asosiasi Fakultas Ekonomi dan Bisnis Indonesia (AFEBI).
Aditia Prasta, ST., MM, Kepala Indonesia Investment Promotion Center (IIPC) London.
Monasisca Noviani, pelajar di Monash University, Melbourne dan salah satu penulis buku Mewujudkan Indonesia 4.0: Kumpulan pemikiran pelajar Indonesia di Australia

Acara ini sendiri dibuka dengan keynote speak dari Menteri Perindustrian, Bapak Dr. Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita, M.Si. Beliau memberikan sedikit gambaran mengenai kondisi perekonomian dan industri manufaktur di Indonesia, serta bagaimana COVID-19 membuat Indonesia harus mengupdate sedikit aspek dari Making Indonesia 4.0, utamanya memberikan tekanan pentingnya berinvestasi di industri farmasi dan alat kesehatan.

Acara ini disiarkan di Sobat Cyber Indonesia. Paparan dari Menteri Perindustrian dan para narasumber dapat diakses di google drive, atau ketuk slides di atas.

Berikut rekamannya dari kanal Sobat Cyber Indonesia. Acara dimulai dari menit 22:55, jadi langsung diskip saja ke menit 22:55 yah!

A ketoprak lunch and reflections on Global Value Chains (GVC)

Mon, 24 Aug 2020 18:53:20 +1000

The picture above is my lunch. My wife made ketoprak today to cure our longing for Indonesian food. I suddenly craved bakwan and my wife brilliantly suggested turning it into ketoprak.

This may be the best ketoprak in the world (this sentence is written under my wife’s supervision). But no, seriously, the ketoprak was great. I am a loyal bakwan (or bala-bala, depending on where you are from) fan, but what probably made the ketoprak so good was the peanut sauce. The sambal kacang was amazing. Just a little lacking in spiciness.

But my wife is far from a chef. What made it delicious was that the peanut sauce was store-bought, not homemade. A few days ago we went to an Asian grocery store and bought this brand of bumbu pecel (peanut sauce mix).

Imported peanut sauce mix

GVC in the Household

Of course, my wife is no culinary maestro. Making peanut sauce from scratch requires a great many ingredients. Different recipes call for different seasonings. And supposedly, even with 100% identical ingredients, if different hands do the grinding, the taste will differ.

In other words, making peanut sauce from scratch is not only tedious – it may well be more expensive than buying it ready-made, with no guarantee of being tastier. Meanwhile, the product we bought has a ton of certifications: halal, ISO, and HACCP. If my wife were asked to get all those certifications, how much would it cost?

This is one of the strengths of GVC. With just one producer, how many households can produce their own ketoprak? And with store-bought peanut sauce, you are more flexible. You don’t have to make ketoprak – you could make pecel sayur, pecel ayam, pecel lele – all with the same sauce.

Peanut sauce is not only competitively priced (many brands, all cheap), but can also be supplied to households even in other countries. Countries that don’t have many pecel vendors can now enjoy pecel easily and cheaply.

Blocking Peanut Sauce Imports

Imagine a husband who doesn’t like his wife cooking with store-bought sauce. He insists everything must be made from scratch. He plans to ban purchases of peanut sauce and even budget subsidies so that his wife can do everything herself: grow the peanuts, grind the sauce, all the way to finished ketoprak.

You can immediately picture what would happen. Making peanut sauce is not something every wife can do efficiently. Just for peanut sauce, wives would lose time for other, more productive activities. If I gave my wife money to make peanut sauce from scratch, she would probably still buy the ready-made version and use the leftover money to upgrade the ketoprak – say, by adding chicken. Pecel ayam, anyone?

Especially if the wife is super productive. If she is a homemaker, time for housework and childcare would have to be cut to make pecel. If she has a career, her work hours would be reduced. Or maybe her leisure time. All for homemade pecel that might not even taste better.

But perhaps some households take genuine pride in homemade pecel. That’s fine too. Maybe in the long run, the wife’s skills improve enough to open her own pecel restaurant. Great. But not every woman wants to become a pecel vendor. If all women became pecel vendors, who would do everything else? Men? Meh.

Welfare Effect on Pecel Vendors?

Those most annoyed by factory-made peanut sauce are probably pecel vendors. If all households make their own pecel with store-bought sauce, vendors’ profits could drop as their customers cook at home. But if the husband was already a pecel customer, he’s unlikely to stop buying pecel from vendors entirely. That would be hypocritical.

Top pecel vendors will still want to compete with factory-made sauce. By making their pecel tastier and more special, adding better toppings, offering a pecel-and-coffee combo, or providing free Wi-Fi. All of this makes consumers happier.

Of course, my household is not part of any anti-import club. Blocking peanut sauce imports only hurts households that want to make peanut-sauce-based food. Making pecel from scratch is inefficient for some households and diverts time, effort, and money from more productive activities.

And trust me, good peanut sauce is a lifesaver. OK, that’s enough. I’m going to go finish my pecel. Until next time!

Adding equation numbering on my hugo academic theme blog.

Fri, 21 Aug 2020 11:01:29 +1000

I just recently migrated my blog from Jekyll powered website to hugo powered one using academic theme. The migration went quite smoothly. All I did was copying my md content from previous blog to \post and update the metadata. It didn’t take too much time since I really have little content when I moved away from Jekyll. Everything works great in the hugo academic, but one.

I didn’t understand at first why Hugo Academic Theme does not render equation labelling correctly. When I use a snippet like this:

$$ some-equation \label{1} $$

and then tried to refer them using \ref{1}, it was rendered as ‘???’. It worked on my Jekyll blog. I was trying to look for easy solution everywhere with no luck (sorry I am lazy and not a programmer).

But then I remembered that my Jekyll blog also did not load $\LaTeX$ correctly first time either. I followed an approach conducted by CSega to solve this easily and it worked. Perhaps I can also use this approach for my Hugo blog. Be warned though that I am not 100% understand why this approach worked.

I copied a code snippet from CSega on the head.html file.

 <head>
 ...
 <script type="text/x-mathjax-config"> MathJax.Hub.Config({ TeX: { equationNumbers: { autoNumber: "all" } } }); </script>
 <script type="text/x-mathjax-config">
 MathJax.Hub.Config({
 tex2jax: {
 inlineMath: [ ['$','$'], ["\\(","\\)"] ],
 processEscapes: true
 }
 });
 </script>
 <script src="https://cdn.mathjax.org/mathjax/latest/MathJax.js?config=TeX-AMS-MML_HTMLorMML" type="text/javascript"></script>
 </head>

I just needed to locate where this snippet should be put to. In other words, I needed to locate my ‘head.html’ in my new hugo website. Fortunately Hugo Academic Theme have great documentation about this. All I needed to do was making a new file named ’layouts\partials\custom_head.html’ on my folder and pasting the snippet there. So that file should be consists only for the snippet from CSega. It is important to note that this snippet must not be pasted on ’theme/academic/layours’. I tried to keep files in the theme folder untouched.

I hope this post is useful for you when you want to add equation numbering / labeling in your blog. If you do have comments or clarifications on what this code means in general will be great!

A paper for Politeknik APP Jakarta national seminar

Thu, 20 Aug 2020 11:28:22 +1000

Currently under review at Asian-Pacific Economic Literature.

The implication of the aggressive emission target on the Indonesian electricity sector

The pledge to reduce emission has reached a new height globally, and Indonesia is no exception. According to Indonesia’s latest NDCs, it vowed to reduce emission by 31.9% to 43.2%. One of the key for Indonesia to reduce its emission is electrification, which makes greening the grid a priority for the Indonesian government. However, Indonesia has been relying heavily on coal while the growth of renewable is slow. A linear optimization technique show that cleaning the indonesian electricity sector from coal leads to a potential increase in cost by 37%. The key to reduce this cost increase is by enabling the Indonesian independent power producers, which grow their electricity generation much faster than the state owned company. The government must improve the efficiency of procurement, improve its pricing, and forego local content requirements, if it wants to achieve its emission target.

Projects

Thu, 20 Aug 2020 11:28:22 +1000

Short brief for DJ Migas

Thu, 20 Aug 2020 11:28:22 +1000

Macro Policy Brief: Global Inflation and the Oil Production Glut

Asumsi APBN menunjukkan optimisme pemerintah di mana dolar akan stabil di 15000 Rp/US$, inflasi di 2,8% dan suku bunga di kisaran 6,7%. Akan tetapi, situasi global menunjukkan adanya kemungkinan suku bunga internasional yang tetap tinggi untuk waktu yang lama (higher for longer). Di samping itu, kemungkinan adanya tekanan harga minyak internasional akibat OPEC yang masih menahan produksi juga dapat berdampak pada pasar minyak bumi di dalam negeri. Mengingat Indonesia saat ini net importer, maka akan sangat penting menjaga nilai tukar dari ketidakpastian global.

Cover Music Video on Youtube

Sun, 16 Aug 2020 19:33:41 +1000

Earth, Wind, and Fire - September Cover

September Cover with the bandids! I record this at home, and filmed the clip at Hackett’s bus station. I had to wait until the first bus came, and then record it quickly lol.

Jackson 5 - I Want You Back Cover

Jackson 5 cover with the bandids! The scenery is a small pond in Dickson. It is a walking distance from where I live.

Radiohead - Creep Cover

Radiohead Creep cover with my colleage in Politeknik APP, Aji. It was fun cover back when I had time hahaha. This is filmed in Poltek APP.

Bobby Helms - Jingle Bell Rock Cover

Jingle Bell Rock cover with my friends. We did this to welcome Christmas back in 2017

Smule (a karaoke app)

Sun, 16 Aug 2020 19:33:41 +1000

Sumber-sumber contekan belajar

Mon, 10 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Postingan ini khusus buat contekan belajaran waktu nyoba-nyoba. Akan coba dibagi berdasarkan program. Contekan ini akan diupdate terus sambil saya belajaran.

STATA

R dan Rmarkdown

Xaringan

html and blog

Python

Dataset

Academics

Me, Canberra, and COVID-19

Thu, 19 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Hey folks. It’s been a long time since I’ve updated the blog. Things have been pretty crazy. All because of COVID-19.

As you may know, this novel coronavirus has sent the whole world into a frenzy. The problems caused by the virus have been changing so fast, much faster than governments and ordinary people can react. When COVID-19 first started making headlines, I was shocked and didn’t know what to do. All I could do was watch the news. I’m currently in Australia, but half my mind is in Depok, where my family lives, especially my mother who is 70++. All I can do is offer prayers and support for my sibling who helps take care of our mother’s needs.

At my campus, all teaching has now been instructed to go online, following the Prime Minister’s order to ban indoor gatherings. As a tutor for ECON3101 (microeconomics 3), I’ve been affected too. I need to prepare online content for the tutorials I’ll be running. All seminars and thesis supervisor consultations also have to be done online. It’s a bit of a hassle because I have to learn how to use Zoom for recording tutorials and hosting/joining meetings. Thankfully, it’s not too difficult.

The public is panicking and engaging in panic buying, as you may have seen on social media. Toilet paper has been completely out of stock for a week now. Fortunately, as users of the traditional water scoop and bucket, we don’t really care. But other commodities like antiseptics are also sold out. Last we checked, food supplies are still okay. Hopefully they stay that way. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has condemned hoarding and assured that Australia’s logistics system will remain capable of maintaining the supply of essential goods.

Yesterday morning, Scott Morrison held a press conference about what Australia would do. All international flights will be banned (except for returning Australian citizens) to close off imported transmission. This allows the government to focus on preventing domestic transmission. Schools will remain open, and a lockdown is unlikely. Gatherings are regulated by size. Indoors, 100 people or more are banned. Outdoors, 500. He also stated that the special task force, the federal government, and state governments are all on the same page and supporting each other in facing COVID-19. Social distancing is recommended, and if you can work from home, then work from home.

All these rules (gathering bans, international travel ban, social distancing, etc.) are anticipated to be the norm for at least 6 months.

Six. Months.

My campus reacted immediately. Emails flooded my inbox. Various advisories about working from home, collecting data, setting up remote work, and instructions on how to create online tutorials all came pouring in. Campus management must be incredibly busy. As a good employee, all I can do is follow all advisories and work from home as much as possible.

My current activities involve intensive coordination for online teaching with lecturers, learning to create content, and making sure my wife and I have enough contingency plans to prepare for the worst. We’re anti-hoarding, so hopefully this principle won’t lead to us starving. I have reasonable faith in the Australian government.

The slightly annoying thing is that I now have to follow COVID-19 developments intensively in two countries. I have to watch both Scott Morrison’s and Jokowi’s speeches. Haha.

Stay safe people. Stay healthy. Wash your hands frequently. Cut back on going out. Hopefully we can all get through this.

Media and Politics: How Television Changed Democracy

Sat, 22 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction: A Visit to the Museum of Australian Democracy

About a year ago, my wife and I visited a museum in Canberra called the Museum of Australian Democracy. The museum occupies Australia’s old Parliament House (the Parliament now works in a new building). Inside, there are all sorts of texts and explanations about political and democratic events in Australia, as well as information about former Prime Ministers. Taking photos outside is free, but entry costs 2 AUD per person. We thought it was well worth it. Here are a few photos of us.

Special thanks to my wife’s friend Ennoy, who visited Canberra and invited us out. Yes, she was the guest yet she was the one who dragged us out of the house – that is how lazy we were.

Besides reading and watching video clips of Australian politicians’ speeches from bygone eras, the museum also offers a free tour called the highlights tour. This free tour is led by a volunteer at scheduled times. Visitors simply gather at a designated point – in our case, the hall – and when the appointed time arrives, the group sets off together led by the tour guide. Our guide was an elderly gentleman whose name we unfortunately forgot (sorry, grandpa). Let us call him “The Elder.”

The Elder walked us through the museum while explaining historically significant rooms from when the building served as Parliament House, recounting the dramatic and historic moments associated with each space. Although the tour lasted about 45 minutes, we were so captivated by The Elder’s storytelling that fatigue barely registered, and his passion for Australian politics was palpable.

The Elder’s tour inspired me in two ways. First, I was inspired to do the same in Indonesia when I am old. Volunteer for tours at the DPR building, pointing and saying “to my right is the seat where the honourable Mr Roy Suryo was caught on camera sleeping.” Second, I was inspired at the tour’s final stop, in the office of the last Prime Minister to work there before moving to the new building. The Elder blamed the invention of television (TV) as the turning point that marked the decline of Australian democracy.

What Does TV Have to Do with Politics?

According to The Elder, before TV, democracy was about public policy. Politicians debated the pros and cons of public policies. The mass media of the time – mostly newspapers and radio – covered these policy debates. Not everyone participated in the discussion either. According to The Elder, only educated people with access to newspapers (and sufficient reading comprehension) engaged in public policy debates. As a result, during elections, people voted for candidates with the best policies.

When TV arrived, democracy shifted to being about personality. Since the advent of TV, politicians became more interested in showing their faces than debating public policy. Debates may still have occurred, but according to The Elder, the focus of campaigning shifted from public policy to the candidate’s persona. Elections became popularity contests about figures, no longer about public policy.

The Elder’s complaint about TV sounds a lot like my complaint about social media.

Anyway, returning to the TV-and-politics story, I became curious whether The Elder’s concern could be generalised. It turns out he is not alone. This article by David Kaiser tells a similar story. According to Kaiser, TV helps people forget real problems and focus on fleeting pleasures. Worse, TV helps create demagogues – politicians whose image is polished to perfection but who are actually incompetent. The Apprentice has even been accused of being a major factor behind Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 US presidential election.

This article by Matt Sailor echoes the same point. TV allows politicians to speak face-to-face with a far larger audience than any previous medium. TV also enables campaign content that is less factual and more negative than what other media of the era produced. And yes, Sailor also concludes that TV helped create popularity contests among candidates rather than policy contests.

There are several other articles you can find online, most with a similar tone. Unfortunately, I have no intention of committing to a deep dive into academic journals on this topic. But at my university, a PhD student named Chris Hoy researched the role of TV in shaping perceptions of inequality, and his preliminary findings indicate a positive correlation.

Why might this happen? Perhaps because visual media has more features? Unlike newspapers, on TV we can see the politician’s body language, which – consciously or not – matters a great deal. Perhaps even more than verbal communication. It is also possible that on TV, characteristics like attractiveness and height can be leveraged more than in print. That reminds me of the claim that President SBY won partly because he is tall and handsome.

Indeed, if we look here, books are almost always better than their film adaptations. According to this article, one reason is that when reading a book, you visualise the scenes yourself, and each reader may imagine something different. Film constrains that imaginative space. Someone with an average face like mine might be better off writing than vlogging. Who knows, a reader who has never seen my face might imagine the author as handsome – then see the real thing and lose all interest.

OK, enough speculation. If you are exploring the role of TV (or social media) in democracy and politics, I would love to hear from you or at least get a comment! Thanks in advance!

Public Policy Academics Who Have Not Evolved

As an academic working in public policy, this naturally led me to reflect. Suppose it is true that the evolution of media has changed how we do politics and democracy. What about academics? When I read about Adam Smith, Alfred Marshall, Hicks, Arrow, Slutsky, and others, not once do I think about who they are as people. What ethnicity? What gender? Old, young, overweight, good-looking? None of it matters. It does not come up on the exam.

The same goes for discussing public policy. If you think about it, academics seem to have stayed in place when it comes to discussing public policy. Perhaps some of us have been “infected” by society – focusing on figures rather than policies. But academics as a whole still seem to focus on issues rather than personalities. In public policy journals, the authors still discuss the policies taken by a figure, not the figure themselves. The language in academic journals is always neutral and very different from what you find on Twitter, for example.

Could this be because academics still primarily operate through written media – in Scopus-indexed journal articles? Perhaps if activities in other media, such as TED Talks, tweeting, and so on, counted toward academic credit, academics could also shift their focus to personalities. Perhaps we too would start being snarky, getting into fights, hurling insults, and having Twitter wars with strangers, instead of focusing on policy pros and cons. If Twitter wars counted toward academic credit, perhaps academics would evolve along with the rest of society, and better understand how people think outside the ivory tower.

OK, time for a Twitter war!

That said, there is a lot of encouragement for academics to use non-written platforms. At my university, for instance, promoting your research on social media is strongly encouraged. We now also have many TED-Talk-style videos, and we have come to know celebrity scientists like Dawkins and Neil deGrasse Tyson. In Indonesia, the most famous economist is perhaps Faisal Basri Batubara, and even he is not that mainstream. Maybe soon we can slowly evolve too. Not now. Maybe in five years?

Jakpos

Fri, 31 Jan 2020 15:01:51 +1000

A Note on the Minister's 'Kampus Merdeka' (Freedom to Learn)

Fri, 31 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Not long ago, the Ministry of Education and Culture’s YouTube channel released a new video: a presentation by Minister Nadiem Makarim on “Kampus Merdeka” (Freedom to Learn). For me, the Ministry of Education and Culture is the most important of all ministries. Not only because of its large budget, but because it is the ministry that shapes our future. I believe a nation can only be as great as what it teaches its children. These children are our future. So when Jokowi announced Nadiem as Minister, I was quite excited.

Here is the video:

Kampus Merdeka appears to have drawn fierce reception from many quarters. Many in the public view it as too pro-business, offering cheap labor, and not pro-student. Lecturers complain that Nadiem’s program seems too practice-heavy, when academia should be about critical thinking, logic, fidelity to one’s discipline, untainted by capitalism.

My take will be somewhat more positive.

What Is Kampus Merdeka?

Kampus Merdeka itself is a program focused more on higher education than on primary and secondary education. Personally, when it comes to educational interventions, the earlier the better. The push should start from elementary school, or even kindergarten. Once students are older, they are much harder to change. But Nadiem, at the start of his speech, offered a rationale that I found very compelling: Speed. He said higher education is the level that can most quickly produce human capital. Mind blown!

According to the video, there are 4 new policies under Kampus Merdeka. First, opening new study programs is made easier. Universities will have more freedom to create new programs. I think this has potential downsides, but while many old requirements are being relaxed, one new requirement strikes me as crucial: the obligation to prove that the new program will involve credible external parties, such as companies, state-owned enterprises, NGOs, or world-class universities.

Second, the mandatory 5-year re-accreditation cycle is eliminated. University accreditation will be automatically extended unless a university wants to upgrade, in which case it applies for re-accreditation. To prevent quality decline, the ministry will monitor indicators and public complaints as signs of deteriorating quality, and will audit the university accordingly. One more important point: recognition of international accreditation.

Third, Nadiem pledged to encourage universities to become PTNBH (Legal Entity State Universities). This applies mainly to public universities, not private ones. Public universities can generally be classified into three types: satker, BLU, and PTNBH. Satker is the most constrained (this is where I work 😢). Everything requires going through the parent ministry. Not flexible. BLU is like satker but with more financial flexibility. PTNBH? Essentially a private entity funded by the government. PTNBH universities have great freedom to make their own decisions. Currently only 11 universities in Indonesia have PTNBH status.

Fourth – and this is the one that generated the most discussion – the right to spend 3 semesters learning outside campus. The ministry will require universities to offer off-campus programs worth 3 semesters, counted as credit hours. These 3 semesters can be used for internships, and/or research assistance, and/or entrepreneurship, or even taking courses from other programs. Yes, “and/or” – so you could do 2 semesters of internship and 1 of independent work, or 1 semester of research, 1 of entrepreneurship, and 1 of internship, etc. Since it is a student’s right, it is optional. If a student wants the standard 8 semesters entirely on campus, that is fine. But universities must prepare the off-campus program.

Pros and Cons: Is It Better Than the Status Quo?

One thing that immediately strikes me as both a lecturer and university administrator is the strong decentralization spirit of Kampus Merdeka, especially in the first three points. Easing the creation of new programs means less ministerial control over what can be taught and a bit more freedom for universities to design curricula. PTNBH clearly gives universities more room to maneuver with less central control than BLU, let alone satker (😢). PTNBH universities don’t need to deal with PNBP tariffs if they find revenue through consulting or research grants, can make university-to-university partnerships, can recruit faculty without going through the center, and so on. Accreditation is also simplified.

Come to think of it, Nadiem’s primary education policy – such as abolishing the national exam – also reduces the ministry’s role in education delivery.

Beyond reducing central control over universities, Kampus Merdeka opens greater opportunities for the non-academic world to participate in higher education. The requirement to collaborate with industry, international universities, or NGOs effectively serves as an invitation from the ministry for these institutions to help make universities more relevant to the real world. Automatic recognition of foreign accreditation standards clearly helps universities ready to compete internationally, freeing them from the burden of satisfying the ministry’s standards – which are obviously lower than the international standards these advanced universities are targeting.

Not only is the ministry’s role reduced, but its remaining workload is also lightened. Eliminating mandatory 5-year re-accreditation clearly reduces BAN-PT’s workload. Nadiem’s argument is very economic: opportunity cost. There is resource misallocation here: universities that neither want nor need re-accreditation (because they are doing business as usual) must allocate resources for it, while universities eager to upgrade from B to A accreditation must queue for a process that often takes a long time.

Oh, digressing a bit – there are at least two points where Nadiem implicitly acknowledges the limitations of his institution. In the video, Nadiem acknowledges a missing link between what universities teach and what the real world needs. This is literally the first time I have heard a senior education ministry official say this. Nadiem also acknowledges the need for third-party involvement (business, professional associations, international accreditation bodies, etc.) because the world is changing too fast, too globally, for the ministry to keep up on its own. With this reasoning, it makes sense why Nadiem gives universities more options to rely on non-ministerial entities for their development.

For the fourth point, there is decentralization as well. Universities now have more freedom to develop off-campus educational programs longer than a single internship semester. This opens more opportunities for universities to create more flexible and extended partnerships with third parties. Students have the freedom (decentralization!) to opt into these off-campus programs. If you are a conventional student, you can still study full-time on campus as usual. But point 4 gives students who feel they need learning experiences from non-campus settings – like companies or NGOs – the opportunity to pursue them.

Decentralization is the name of the game. Political decentralization has produced new stars like Nadiem’s own boss, Bu Risma, Pak Ganjar, Pak RK, Pak Anies, and so on. It will be interesting to see whether university decentralization produces new excellent campuses everywhere.

There are some critiques that I think are quite valid. PTNBH and internships are often called too pro-business and encouraging the capitalization of education. Internships are frequently exploited by companies to cut production costs. And now the duration could be extended to a year or more. Moreover, “This kind of education orientation (practice-focused) actually kills the essence of free critical thinking as a human being. Education is no longer a tool for human liberation or humanization,” as stated by Dian Septi Trisnanti, Secretary General of FBLP (Cross-Factory Workers Federation), quoted from Tirto. Others also ask why Nadiem doesn’t simply improve teacher and lecturer competency instead of making these changes.

Admittedly, the last time I visited a PTNBH campus in the Depok area, the parking lot was already packed with cars. I certainly do not particularly like the commercialization of education, especially higher education. Unfortunately, money is a problem for everyone, including the government. PTNBH universities are encouraged to generate their own revenue and have their subsidies reduced, precisely so that funds can be reallocated to smaller universities. However, in his speech, Nadiem promised that subsidies for universities upgrading to PTNBH status would not be cut – so any new revenue would increase the university’s total budget.

As an economist, I like to see free market interactions as power relations between buyers and sellers. The higher education market is no exception. Commercialization of education looks bad because, although demand for higher education keeps rising, supply is stagnant. Something is preventing Indonesia’s top universities from growing in quality and quantity. One of Nadiem’s tasks is to increase the supply of higher education – not just in quality and quantity, but also in the range of focus: vocational vs. academic. If competition for top universities increases, tuition costs could potentially be reduced.

And remember, becoming a PTNBH is not mandatory. So not every university will suddenly turn capitalist. You will still have affordable socialist-priced universities as options.

As for improving lecturer quality, I think that is no easy task. I am skeptical the ministry can achieve it quickly, no matter how much money it has. Perhaps Nadiem is skeptical too. That is why he seeks to involve third parties like industry, professional associations, and international universities. Their involvement, under Kampus Merdeka, can include co-designing new study programs – with curricula shaped by real-world practitioners – or establishing internship programs where students learn from practitioners for 3 semesters. Is this really bad for students?

Lastly, I want to address the argument that education should be a tool for human liberation. A friend of mine argues that education ought to pursue pure knowledge, free from the clutches of capitalism.

A very scholarly argument. I admit my brain is not quite sharp enough to fully appreciate it. Perhaps as academics, we must indeed uphold the roots of our discipline. But unfortunately, the real world is not that beautiful. Our students need to earn a living, find happiness for themselves and their families, and help build Indonesia’s economy. Unlike developed countries whose research spending reaches 1-2% of GDP, Indonesia is not there yet. For the majority of our students, being a purist of knowledge is a luxury they cannot afford. Personally, I believe upholding one’s discipline is mandatory. But education should focus on the learner, not the knowledge itself. What they need, not what we want to bestow upon them.

From the critics I have read and heard, none have proposed what alternative policies the ministry should adopt. As a consequence, I can only compare Kampus Merdeka against the status quo. Compared to the status quo, I still think Kampus Merdeka is probably better. At the very least, Kampus Merdeka does not eliminate the status quo – it makes it a choice. From Nadiem’s presentation, Kampus Merdeka gives universities more freedom to adapt to their needs and the skill demands of the labor market. Moreover, the internship program is also optional. Students who oppose capitalism or are confident their skills cannot be bought cheaply can still graduate without taking the internship track.

Ultimately, We Need More Than Just a Speech

Of course, no one is perfect. Kampus Merdeka will not be a panacea for Indonesian higher education. Its implementation remains to be seen. There is no draft regulation yet that details the 4 main points of Kampus Merdeka. The ministry still needs to issue a list of approved third parties for program or internship partnerships, and which international accreditations are recognized. What are the criteria for “declining campus performance” that would trigger a ministry audit? Evaluating all universities in Indonesia is certainly a heavy task, but perhaps still easier than mandatory accreditation every 5 years? We will see.

I also somewhat regret the absence of polytechnics and other diploma providers from Nadiem’s speech. After all, diploma programs are inherently closer to industry than more academically oriented degree programs. Should polytechnics go through the same accreditation as universities? Should polytechnic lecturers be evaluated with the same metrics as university professors? I also regret the absence of RPL (Recognition of Prior Learning) from Kampus Merdeka. This is an old policy, but its implementation remains unclear. Perhaps polytechnics and RPL will be the focus of another speech. Hopefully I can watch that one too.

So far, no new regulations have been issued by the ministry. We cannot judge Nadiem’s rules if the rules are not out yet. For now, we can only assess the Minister’s speeches. Fortunately, I think his speeches are quite good and enjoyable. I rarely enjoy listening to government officials’ speeches. The best part of Nadiem’s YouTube speech above is probably the UGM community service program (KKN) in Papua. It would be great if more universities could do KKN like that. The video quality is amazing. Check it at minute 32:57.

Wildfires and Floods: A Lesson

Sun, 12 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Australia is in mourning. Devastating bushfires have been ravaging the continent, specifically in New South Wales (NSW), now spreading to Victoria as well. This fire season has burned millions of hectares, a new record. Dozens have died and property damage has reached hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Is Climate Change to Blame?

It didn’t take long for international media to cover the event. A few days ago, I listened to the Babbage podcast episode on Australian wildfires, featuring Catherine Brahic, environment editor at The Economist. According to Catherine, bushfires are normal in Australia, part of the dry ecosystem.

Climate change has made something that should be normal much worse.

The climate crisis has made Australia drier and hotter. This year, Australia again broke records for highest temperatures and lowest rainfall. Dry air and dry scrubland vegetation make the area highly flammable. Add the phenomenon of Dry Thunderstorms, which are quite common in Australia, and it gets even scarier. Lightning strikes, but no rain. When lightning hits a bone-dry tree and the fire is fanned by wind, it’s game over.

What About Indonesia?

It’s perfectly natural to connect this to Indonesia. Around the same time, Jakarta and its surroundings experienced severe flooding, claiming 60 lives. Rainfall during the event broke all-time records. While Australia sees dry getting drier, Jakarta appears to be experiencing the opposite: wet getting wetter.

“Areas that are currently wet, will likely become more wet. Areas that are currently dry will become more dry,” Professor Abraham said. source

I don’t need to elaborate on how massive this flood was. Plenty of national news has covered it, or you may have experienced it yourself. There has been much debate about what went wrong or could be improved, but clearly, most people agree that the climate crisis is one of the most significant contributing factors.

Problems Caused by the Climate Crisis

Several issues arise from the climate crisis. First is uncertainty. The climate crisis makes predicting extreme weather increasingly difficult. Insurance companies will also struggle to calculate risk from these changes, potentially causing premiums to rise or products to disappear entirely because they’re no longer feasible. Farmers will find it harder to predict when and how to plant.

The meteorological agency’s job becomes increasingly difficult.

Ber-kali2 BMKG salah;yg diramal hujan extrim, tak ada hujan, yg tak diramal hujan extrim malah curah hujannya terdahsyat. Tapi uniknya nggak ada yg lakukan class action ke BMKG. Tapi class actionnya kpd AniesB. Sekalipun yg paling terdampak banjir adalah Provinsi Jabar&Banten. https://t.co/VYH007gLIF
— Hidayat Nur Wahid (@hnurwahid) January 12, 2020

especially when there are politicians like this

The next issue is about changing habits. How buildings are constructed, building codes – everything must adapt. In Jakarta’s context, I’ve often heard stories about residents who are used to living with floods and have their own mitigation strategies, such as knowing when to evacuate and how to prepare their homes to minimize flood damage. With floods that may only get worse, whether these habits are still sufficient or need to be intensified remains to be seen.

More critically, areas that were once habitable are becoming increasingly risky, possibly to the point of requiring relocation. But we all know relocation is politically sensitive. Should the government intervene? Or leave residents there until they’re eventually forced out by nature? Currently, there doesn’t seem to be a case of rising risk levels making an area completely uninhabitable (perhaps), but this could just be a matter of time, meaning it needs to be considered now.

Politics, Politics, Politics

And of course, the biggest problem may be politics. Everyone says the government must do something, but how do you get politicians to unite and pass climate crisis mitigation regulations? In Australia, politics is a mess. Many citizens don’t care, and the politicians are mediocre. Especially since Australia is a country whose climate-crisis-contributing industries are quite large.

In Indonesia, discussion about the climate crisis is still very rare, at least not as widespread as in Australia, making it even harder to comment on. Regulation on groundwater use has never become an important issue for either central or local government. The Giant Sea Wall construction appears to have stalled, and the central government even wants to flee to a new capital at considerable expense. Cooperation between local and central governments also seems nonexistent.

Then there’s international politics. The United States recently withdrew from the Paris Agreement. Talks in Madrid also stalled. A carbon tax is still disliked by most countries.

Meanwhile, time keeps ticking, emissions keep rising, records keep being broken. If it’s difficult for all of us to reduce carbon emissions, reduce groundwater usage, and change our lifestyles, it’s only a matter of time before the Earth forces us to do all of that, in its own way.

Hopefully we’re all prepared.

Does Having Children Hurt Women Financially? An Economics Perspective

Mon, 06 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Recently, Twitter was buzzing because a doctor tweeted about the negative effects of breastfeeding on mothers.

Siapa bilang ibu menyusui jadi lebih sehat?

Nih ya saya kasik tahu...

*siap2 dilempar kulit pete oleh para penyembah ASI
— Ryu Hasan (@ryuhasan) December 30, 2019

The thread immediately went viral, with many pro-breastfeeding advocates objecting. Some netizens took a neutral stance, saying facts are facts and there’s no need to get emotional about them. Others made counter-threads, like this one:

As a young researcher, this thread fascinates me. Aku sampai cari-cari artikel jurnal ttg apa sih yang terjadi pada otak ibu pada postpartum (setelah lahiran) & sebenernya dampak menyusui buat ibu itu apa - krn biasanya kan buat anak yg dibahas manfaatnya. https://t.co/wTF8sNeZEM
— Davrina Rianda (@DavrinaR) January 1, 2020

Following that thread was fun because it was full of references. Unfortunately, the debate wasn’t truly two-sided and practically ended there, as far as I could tell.

Although I don’t know much about breastfeeding, the debate caught my attention. I agree with the doctor that raising a child is an activity that demands considerable attention, time, and cost, and in my view, the burden falls disproportionately on women. The nausea, carrying the baby for 9 months, and then risking your life during delivery. After birth, breast milk can only be produced by the mother, not to mention the bodily changes. I don’t know what it feels like, but if I had to go through all that, I’d probably pass.

This disparity doesn’t stop at biology – it extends to finances. We’re fortunate to live in more progressive times, where the gender pay gap has been narrowing. According to Kleven et al. (pdf), the gender pay gap has long been shrinking thanks to education and anti-gender discrimination measures, but the gap hasn’t disappeared completely. In fact, the pay gap between men and women plateaus at around 15-20%. Kleven et al. offer an explanation: the cause is children. At least in Denmark.

Kleven et al. conducted their study on Danish residents from 1980 to 2013. Their study is essentially a Diff-in-Diff design, where the control group is couples who don’t (yet) have children. Their robustness check uses placebo births and IV with twin births and gender mix as instruments. The methodology is quite interesting, made possible by Denmark’s rich population data. Their dependent variables are wage rate, labor participation, and working hours.

But in this blog post I’ll only discuss their results.

According to them, in Denmark, men’s and women’s wages follow the same trend and don’t differ when education is controlled for. However, when having their first child, men’s wages continue to rise steadily while women’s wages stagnate or even decline. This occurs across all three of their wage indicators. They also note that non-child causes have diminished greatly, while the child-related cause has actually risen, resulting in the persistent 20% gap.

I’ll quote what they consider their two most important conclusions:

First, the inclusion of education controls has only a small impact on the estimation of child-related gender inequality. It is still the case that child-related inequality is close to 80% of total inequality at the end of the period…

…Second, while the child-related gender gap has been growing over time, the education-related gender gap has been shrinking dramatically. Education related inequality was almost as large as child-related inequality at the beginning of the period, but has almost disappeared over time.

…the point being that education is no longer a major cause of the income gap between men and women and has nearly disappeared. Meanwhile, the child effect (technically they call it “child penalty”) continues to rise over time.

Remember that this is a study about Denmark. As we know, Denmark is one of the most aggressive countries in promoting gender equal pay and gender equal opportunity. Even regarding children, things like parental leave and government support are already very family-friendly. Yet the gap persists, and it seems genuinely difficult to eliminate entirely.

For non-Denmark contexts, there’s Hupkau and Leturcq (2017) who studied the UK. I’ve also seen a study from a Balkan country but can’t remember who wrote it. There’s also a report from the U.S. Census Bureau that reaches the same conclusion. Kleven et al. include a chart of international gender pay gaps, which more or less are indeed stuck at around 20 percent. It’s in their paper if you want to see it.

Having children does seem to burden women more than men. This is true even for pay, even in very progressive countries where the government is truly active on the gender pay gap issue. How much more so in countries where the government doesn’t bother.

This post is not meant to tell women to stop having children, let alone suggest that breastfeeding is a scheme by men to earn higher wages. Having and raising children is every woman’s right. Even though having children is demanding and resource-intensive, the happiness children bring to their parents may well be worth it. There is certainly nothing wrong with women (and men) having more information about what to consider when making a decision as important as having children. This decision is enormous and has significant long-term effects, both for individuals and society.

I also encourage husbands to recognize the enormous sacrifice their wives make when choosing to have children. Help her carry that burden. If she has cravings, buy her what she wants. Take on more of the non-biological responsibilities than you did before she was pregnant. Take turns watching the baby, handling diapers, and so on. Remember, men cannot replace pregnancy or breastfeeding, so at least compensate in other areas.

For men who abandon women after getting them pregnant: go to fucking hell

Boosting Global Competitiveness in Indonesia: is Industri 4.0 the answer?

Thu, 18 Apr 2019 10:18:40 +1000

Can cryptocurrency help business to be more competitive?

Thu, 18 Apr 2019 10:18:40 +1000

How Trump’s steel and aluminium tariff shapes future world trade

Thu, 18 Apr 2019 10:18:40 +1000

Strategi sukses meraih beasiswa pendidikan lanjut

Tue, 05 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Strategi sukses meraih

beasiswa pendidikan lanjut

I Made Krisna Gupta
18 September 2020
Presentasi ini dapat diakses di krisna.netlify.app/talk/beasiswa

Tentang Saya

Penerima beasiswa Australia Awards Indonesia.
Kandidat doktoral ekonomi di Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University (ANU).
Fungsional dosen di Politeknik APP Jakarta.
Pendidikan terakhir:
- M.Sc. in Economics at VU University
- M.S.E. Ekonomi di Universitas Indonesia
Akses CV saya di krisna.netlify.app/#CV

Beasiswa yang pernah dicoba (S2)

DAAD (Jerman)
Chevening (UK)
USAID (USA)
NESO (Belanda)
KOICA (Korea Selatan)
LPDP
Australia Awards Scholarship (Australia)
Twente (Belanda)
NTUST (Taiwan)
VU Fellowship Program (Belanda)

Beasiswa yang pernah dicoba (S3)

ANU PhD Scholarship (Australia)
Chevening (UK)
Australia Awards Scholarship (Australia)

Daftar isi

tips umum
tips spesifik
tips extra untuk S3
penutup

Berdasarkan pengalaman pribadi

Informasi adalah kunci:
- Kenali diri sendiri dulu
- ikuti berita tentang beasiswa
- rajin membaca laman tentang beasiswa
Proses mencari beasiswa agak berbeda tergantung dari:
- dalam negeri vs luar negeri
- S2 vs S3

Kenali diri sendiri dulu

Kampus atau program apakah yang anda butuhkan?
- Apakah gelarnya berguna untuk karir?
- coursework or by research?
- Ranking fakultas
- Apakah ada beasiswa kampus?
- Ikuti lebih dari satu program
Pertimbangan finansial dan keluarga
- Tidak semua ditanggung beasiswa
- Potensi LDR

Kenali diri sendiri dulu

Beasiswa adalah kompetisi.
Beberapa privilege yang menguntungkan:
- keunggulan akademik (IPK, TPA, bahasa)
- punya uang lebih
- kenal orang penting / spv
No privilege? Work harder!
- perbanyak membaca dan menulis
- perkaya kegiatan sosial
- jadi dosen/peneliti 😜

Keep yourself updated

Selalu terdepan dalam informasi.
Ikuti sumber berita yang ter-update.
- akun sosial media beasiswa.
- ikuti forum khusus beasiswa jurusan tertentu.
- ASN biasanya punya portal internal
Kenali syarat yang sejenis.
- kopi transkrip, surat rekomendasi, tes bahasa inggris, TPA, LOA.
Catat tanggal-tanggal penting.

Keep yourself organised

Organisasi yang baik akan lebih efisien.
- Buat folder untuk setiap aplikasi.
- menyiapkan checklist sangat membantu.
- punya reminder / pengingat.
siapkan waktu dan ongkos untuk translasi dan legalisir.
take your time. Kalau submisi on-line, hati-hati traffic di detik-detik akhir.
Punya partner akan sangat menolong.

Keep yourself motivated

Tidak ada faktor yang lebih penting daripada niat. Selalu luangkan waktu untuk update informasi dan aplikasi

Beberapa tips spesifik

Setiap beasiswa punya persyaratan khusus yang mungkin berbeda satu sama lain

Kampus dulu atau beasiswa dulu?

Beberapa beasiswa mensyaratkan beasiswa dulu / tidak perlu Letter of Acceptance (LoA)
- Australia Awards, DAAD, dan Chevening
Namun informasi mengenai program yang dituju tetap harus dicari
- Modal untuk menjawab interview
- Kadang kampus punya beasiswa juga
Khusus PhD, sangat umum diwajibkan memiliki bukti korespondensi dengan calon pembimbing

Mendapatkan LoA

Untuk beasiswa seperti LPDP, LoA cukup penting
LoA dari LN malah relatif mudah
- kampus DN biasanya ada ujian saringan masuk / TPA
- LN mostly administratif

Kecuali jika anda kesulitan dengan bahasa inggris

Tes bahasa inggris

Nomor satu harus dipikirkan untuk LN hunter
Pastikan tes apa yang diakui
IELTS vs TOEFL
- IELTS (menurut saya) lebih mudah
- institutional TOEFL? yes or no?
Perlukah mengambil les persiapan?
- IELTS secara umum lebih murah
- beli buku, online, partner
- practice makes perfect, ala bisa karena biasa

Menulis essay

beasiswa pada umumnya mensyaratkan essay
mulai dengan kerangka yang baik
- gunakan tujuan beasiswa sebagai acuan
- di mana posisi kita?
baca kembali dan tanya: paragraf ini menjawab pertanyaan apa?
minta partner untuk membaca
perbanyak latihan (sekalian IELTS/TOEFL)

Menulis essay

beberapa beasiswa menyediakan form khusus
Informasi yang biasanya ditanyakan:
- memilih program
- kontribusi hasil studi
- cerita sukses
Konteks sangatlah penting
- kaitkan dengan pekerjaan
- kolaborasi dengan institusi / negara donor
Contoh essay saya dulu apply AAS

Wawancara

Wawancara pada umumnya menanyakan pertanyaan yang mirip dengan di aplikasi.
persiapan yang baik mengurangi derajat kepanikan dan meningkatkan rasa percaya diri
beberapa persiapan yang saya rekomendasikan:
- antisipasi pertanyaan
- persiapkan jawaban
- baca yang banyak tentang beasiswa
- latihan
Saya bikin list potensi pertanyaan AAS

Tips ekstra S3 untuk ASN

Struktural/manajerial lebih sulit (mungkin)
- susah dapat ijin (kelamaan)
- tidak banyak benefit bagi institusi
- juga bagi anda pribadi
sepertinya menjadi dosen membantu
- institusi mendapat benefit
- angkatan saya (AAS) banyak fungsional
Ilmu dari S3 sangat dalam dan spesifik

Tips ekstra S3 & S2 untuk swasta

Apakah beasiswa berguna untuk karir?
- S3 harus mikir lebih ekstra
- 5 tahun kerja vs 5 tahun sekolah
beberapa kantor mau re-employ
- tapi sangat jarang yang begini
- siap-siap mantab (makan tabungan)
akan lebih baik jika sudah punya tujuan kerja
- misalnya dosen / peneliti

Pengalaman pribadi (dosen)

Kontribusi dosen sangat mudah dan terukur:
- dosen PhD di Indonesia masih sedikit
- publikasi akademis sangat sedikit
Tidak perlu berkhayal terlalu jauh
- kolaborasi riset antar lembaga
Kerjaan mendukung untuk PhD
- otomatis rajin membaca dan menulis
- mudah dikontekstualisasi dengan aplikasi

Mempersiapkan research proposal

Pastikan proposal riset anda mengakomodir target beasiswa
- Australia Awards memiliki sektor yang ditarget secara spesifik
- beberapa beasiswa punya slot khusus tentang riset di form-nya
Wajib lihat persyaratan di situs fakultas:
- beberapa kampus minta hanya 3 halaman maksimal
- ada juga yang membebaskan, bahkan sampai 15 halaman

Mempersiapkan research proposal

Informasi yang wajib ada di proposal riset:
- pendahuluan, tekankan di latar belakang, motivasi, obyektif
- metode dan data (kalau sudah punya rencana mau pakai data apa)
- timeline. Apakah bisa selesai dalam jangka waktu S3?
Demonstrasi bahwa anda mengikuti literatur di bidang anda.
Tunjukan hal-hal yang sudah anda kerjakan
Contoh salah satu proposal pendek

Tips memilih pembimbing

Approach pembimbing biasanya wajib untuk beasiswa S3.
- Sebaiknya diutamakan
- profesor seringkali punya extra funding
- Beasiswa S3 juga bisa datang dari lembaga riset.
Baca situs kampus tentang mengapproach profesor: apakah sentralistik atau personal
Makin sakti, makin sibuk.

Tips korespondensi

Pastikan akun surel anda professional.
Pastikan anda tau dia profesor atau bukan.
- Supaya tau cara menyapa.
Pastikan anda punya informasi tentang orang ini.
- bisa gunakan situs seperti research gate
- lebih baik lagi jika paper beliau anda cite di proposal
Makin sakti, makin sibuk.
- jika beliau minta revisi, langsung kerjakan.
Jangan lupa diprint.

Tips setelah dapat beasiswa

Banyak hal yang harus dipersiapkan setelah diterima ~~misalnya bucket list tempat jalan-jalan~~.

Simpan rapi kontrak beasiswa
Catat langkah-langkah berikutnya
Persiapkan SK TB
Persiapkan paspor dinas

Tips ketika sudah sekolah

beasiswa (and life in general) is a long-term project.
mencari beasiswa S2 dimulai sejak S1
mencari beasiswa S3 dimulai sejak S2
- sekolah S2 yang bener
- jalin relasi dengan pembimbing
Selalu ingat ilmu padi
- jangan cepat berpuas diri
- Dirasani? balas dengan karya

Tips ketika sudah sekolah

Pastikan anda memang ingin sekolah
- rumput tetangga effect
- ingat yang tidak dapat
Terutama bagi PhD
- rate depresi cukup tinggi
- 5 tahun sekolah vs 5 tahun bekerja
- Make sure you love what you do.
- supervisor matters

Penutup

baca, baca, dan baca
No privilege? work harder.
- or be prepare to make ‘sacrifice’
Persisten dan jangan menyerah
Bersiap menyambut peluang

Penutup

Ada ratusan yang gagal dari setiap 1 kelulusan
- don’t waste the privilege
Evaluasi pasca-lulus biasanya tidak ada
- anda harus memikirkan sendiri pola karir anda
Dosen / peneliti jadi semakin menarik
- Indonesia kekurangan dosen dan peneliti
- Kesempatan meneliti di institusi terbaik
- usahakan publikasi
We need more Indonesian researcher

Miscellaneous | Krisna 'imed' Gupta

The Role of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Trade and Investment

Melihat Indonesia lewat kacamata Ray Dalio: Bagaimana Negara Bankrut

About Ray Dalio’s Book

Applying Ray Dalio’s Indicators

TL;DR

Issues in Indonesia's State Budget

Trump Tariffs and Indonesia's Automotive Industry

Indonesian consumption growth, labor share, and saving rate

Increasing Saving Rate

Declining Labor Share

Checking BPS open unemployment rate data

Indonesia's Declining Middle Class: A Warning Sign?

Safe and Comfortable in the Workplace

Unbundlling, GVC and TiVA

Mearsheimer's realism principles: compatible with economics?

Mearsheimer’s Realism Principles

Connection to Microeconomic Assumptions

Realism vs Pareto efficient outcomes in economics

Realism vs Pareto Optimality

Example

Implications

Commenting on the Health Minister's Podcast with Akbar Faizal Uncensored

Balance of payments problems are not (just) about trade

A chapter for ERIA on Indonesian trade in services.

Mobile Legends: Bang Bang

Guild Wars 2

Monster Hunter Wilds

Mobile Legends: Bang Bang

The trade balance and why we can't buy nice things

Latest World Bank report on international trade and green transition in Indonesia

Cigarette excise project with PROSPERA

A framework to estimate cigarette excise elasticity

Does ASEAN matter? How the summit tackles current challenges

Public policy analysis: a discussion

The Complexity of Evaluating the Performance of the Directorate General of Agro-Industry

Government spending and inequality

GVC, Structural Transformation, and Policy Implications for Indonesia's Food and Beverage Industry

Behind the Packaging: Understanding Global Supply Chains in Indonesia's Food Industry

Guest Lecture Video

Projecting the long-run impact of an economic reform: the case of the Indonesian Omnibus Law

Video Recording

Slides

Book review: "How the World Became Rich: the Historical Origins of Economic Growth"

Why DMO, DPO, and price ceilings failed to control cooking oil prices and supply

Introduction

Table 1: Timeline of MoT regulations on CPO and cooking oil

Underlying Assumptions

Other Possible Problems: Domestic Origins

Biodiesel

Limited Production

Why the Price Ceiling Failed

Distribution Costs

Other Issues

Mafia?

Conclusion

Menakar Efektivitas Neraca Komoditas

Sekilas tentang Buku Kami

About the book

Series 01 Ekonomi

About the book

About this book

Goals 1: Poverty eradication

Goals 8: Decent work and economic Growth

Goals 10: Reduced inequality

Thanks!

Kuliah Umum

Profesor (Emeritus) Dorodjatun Kuntjoro-Jakti

Is the Blackwidow V3 Mini Hyperspeed any good? Trying the yellow switch!

Why mechanical keyboards and Razer?

Why Yellow switch?

Why mini?

Conclusion

Indonesian Students Association abroad: what is it for?

Perhimpunan Pelajar Indonesia Dunia (PPID)

A More Activist and Scientific PPI?

PPI: For Whom?

1. Student Welfare

2. Advocacy

3. Socializing