Pertinent Development Trends In Indonesia for the Past Half A Decade
Underdevelopment: A case study
In this project, you are expected to choose an underdeveloped country as a case study and explain
pertinent development related trends and patterns in last five years in that country.
Some important links.
You can use this link to identify a country for your project: http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries
Another useful link is: http://devinit.org/#!/data
See World bank, United nations, IMF and WTO websites too.
For this research paper, you will make use of at least FOUR scholarly sources on you country of
choice. I expect see 8-10 references in total.
Note: See sections below on what is a scholarly source? and What is NOT a scholarly source for
further clarification.
Solution
Introduction
Development is a core issue in the proper management of daily activities of a nation,
since it determines the pattern of living as well as the life expectancies of individuals in a
country. This paper majors on Indonesia in the examination of pertinent development related
trends as well as patterns in the past half a decade, through examinations of various pillars that
include socio-economic, global market integration, organization relations, and social problems
among others.
Indonesia is a country made of Islands and is in Southeast Asia. It is one of the
underdeveloped countries as it experiences certain problems that undermine its economic growth
as well as development (Balassa, 2014, p. 1962). Below are the major pillars that this paper
touches in determining pertinent development trends in this nation for the past five years.
Social and Economic Indicators
Indonesia is one of the most dynamic nations in terms of culture as well as economy,
since it has several inhabitants that include immigrants as well as the natives. When diverse
individuals come together, they automatically promote the economic status of any nation,
because they bring some new aspects in the economy and this automatically reflects in the Gross
Domestic Product of that nation. Economic indicators simply refer to figures of an economic
endeavor that enables individuals or experts to foretell the likely well being of a nation, thus
determining investment direction.
PERTINENT DEVELOPMENT TRENDS IN INDONESIA 5
Economic Indicators
The major economic Indicators in Indonesia can fall under two categories, which are the
lagging and the leading indicators. The major difference between the two categories is that
lagging indicators show the historical performance of the Indonesian Economy and there
identification is only possible after establishment of a particular economic pattern in a nation
(Brooks, & Del Negro, 2004, p. 679). Leading indicators on the other hand, refer to those that
take a different direction upon huge economic adjustments and can be of use in prediction of
future economic trends.
Leading Economic Indicators
Stock Market
It is obvious that stock market prices mainly tell what companies expect to receive in
return for various commodities that they manufacture. A country with high stock market price in
most instances means a positive future growth. Indonesian being an underdeveloped nation, its
stock prices is still low in comparison to the fully developed countries (Obidzinski, et al, 2012,
n.p). However, it is important to note that this does not mean a dull future, since it is still
growing at an alarming rate in comparison to the developed nations, which are at their break-
even points. In the past half a decade, the Indonesian stock market prices have been on a gradual
increase, meaning it has a bright future as far as its economy is concerned.
PERTINENT DEVELOPMENT TRENDS IN INDONESIA
12
Social, economic, and political problems
Challenges are part of life of any individuals or nation and the best that can be done is to
minimize, as doing away with them completely is almost impossible (Reid, 2012, n.p). Current
challenges that Indonesia faces take three forms, which are political, economic, and social.
Economic
Inflation
Generally, inflation is the general increase in prices of commodities in a country due to
presence of large amounts of money floating in the economy. It is important to note that a
reasonable inflation in the economy is acceptable as it enables things to run accordingly, but
when it is extreme then it interferes with everything and people cannot afford to acquire the
necessities, since they are very expensive. Indonesia is a victim of extreme inflation due to
certain crises, which forces the central bank of the country to ask for large reserve ratios from the
commercial banks (Güven, 2012, p. 894). The commercial banks also pass this to the customers
in order to return the economy to normalcy.
Inequality
PERTINENT DEVELOPMENT TRENDS IN INDONESIA
13
This emerges mainly in the aspect of income distribution, as some individuals are
extremely rich while others are very poor, thus resulting to reluctance by the poor to participate
in the country’s economic development (Wouters, & Odermatt, 2014, p.51).
Social
Malnutrition
Indonesia mainly concentrates on rice farming and rice is a carbohydrate. For a human
being to be healthy, he or she needs a balanced diet that entails vitamins, proteins, and
carbohydrates as well. Lack of balanced diets threatens Indonesian population to face
malnutrition in the coming years.
HIV
HIV is a world epidemic that courses loss of lives as well as weakening body cells, thus
resulting to low productivity (Reid, 2012, n.p). Indonesia has several individuals that suffer from
HIV and this means that it has fewer individuals to produce in the farms as well as other sectors,
which means that the potential of economic advancement is diminishing.
Political
Political instability
Indonesia being a developing nation, it has people who are struggling for power and they
are willing to do anything to acquire it (Wouters, & Odermatt, 2014, p.58). The outcome is that
the entire Indonesia is not politically stable and this means that people concentrate on other
PERTINENT DEVELOPMENT TRENDS IN INDONESIA
15
References
Balassa, B. (2014). The first half of the development decade: growth, trade and the balance of
payments of the developing countries, 1960-65. PSL Quarterly Review, 21(87).
http://bib03.caspur.it/ojspadis/index.php/PSLQuarterlyReview/article/view/11721
Brooks, R., & Del Negro, M. (2004). The rise in comovement across national stock markets:
market integration or IT bubble?. Journal of Empirical Finance, 11(5), 659-680.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927539804000210
Frijns, B., Tourani-Rad, A., & Indriawan, I. (2012). Political crises and the stock market
integration of emerging markets. Journal of Banking & Finance, 36(3), 644-653.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378426611001683
Graham, M., Kiviaho, J., & Nikkinen, J. (2012). Integration of 22 emerging stock markets: A
three-dimensional analysis. Global Finance Journal, 23(1), 34-47.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S104402831200004X
Güven, A. B. (2012). The IMF, the World Bank, and the global economic crisis: exploring
paradigm continuity. Development and Change, 43(4), 869-898.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2012.01781.x/full
Obidzinski, K., Andriani, R., Komarudin, H., & Andrianto, A. (2012). Environmental and social
impacts of oil palm plantations and their implications for biofuel production in Indonesia.
Ecology and Society, 17(1). http://www.cifor.org/library/3762/environmental-and-social-
impacts-of-oil-palm-plantations-and-their-implications-for-biofuel-production-in-
indonesia/?pub=3762&&utm_source=/19458/oil-palm-can-be-made-more-biodiversity-
friendly-experts&utm_medium=Further+reading&utm_campaign=Blog+feature
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