How to Publish in AER and JPE: Think Like Detective (Among Many Other Things, Of Course)

While Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson try to save the world, I am, in fact, enjoying the funny lyrics of two albums of The Smiths, The Queen is Dead and Louder than Bombs, and reading Fisman and Miguel's Economic Gangsters. It's a brand new popular book on the development economics of corruption that uses creative sherlock-holmes-like approach. In particular, I find two chapters on Suharto Inc and the diplomat's parking tickets in New York interesting.

Observing the ups and downs of Suharto-linked listed companies in Jakarta Stock Exchange when there was rumor on then the President's health in 1996, they estimate that the value of political connection was around 25 percent of such companies' market value. It's a big number, by the way, because even when Apple introduced the new technological breakthrough of iPhone in 2006, its share's price was up merely by 8 percent.

It was such a simple way to estimate the value of being close to a dictator, but with the approach that nobody haven't thought about it before, and by that it managed to get published in the most prestigious American Economic Review journal. Actually the paper (read here, in pdf) is more interesting than the chapter on the book.

On diplomatic parking tickets chapter, the conclusion might sound like stating the obvious, that is, in corruption, both norms, or values, and legal enforcement, matter. But the real catch is really the fact that you can relate, of all things, parking violation in New York to reveal the nature of corruption. You can read the academic journal underlying that chapter, that will be published in another prestigious Journal of Political Economy, here (in pdf).

Oh by the way, between 1997 and 2002, Indonesian UN diplomats were in the 24th ranking (out of 149 countries) with 36.5 tickets per diplomat.

Tale of Two Presidents

In his first dispatch from Istana Negara/Cikeas, MT writes about the somewhat comical behind the scene reactions of (now former) cabinet members during the highly anticipated non-event otherwise known as the cabinet reshuffling. In his second post as a guest blogger for the Cafe, MT writes about some similarities between SBY and Soeharto (they just keep coming, don't they) which include SBY's ability to make people cringe, instead of laugh, with his jokes. - Manager

Tale of Two Presidents
by MT

Days before former president Soeharto resigned -I think its around November 1997- Cornell’s Ben Anderson gave a not-so-famous interview about Soeharto’s intention to resign (in high Javanese language as Lengser Keprabon, Madheg Pandhito for whatever that means). Anderson talked at length about the hypocrisy of Soeharto and how alluded much to Javanese olden day epic (Babad) to justify his action. But that I don’t want to talk about.

In one part Anderson spoke about his coldness (he could order the killing of thousands of people, borrowing Capote’s words in cold blood), in spite of (or may be because) his being Javanese. Anderson said that when Soeharto resorts to cruelness it is not something from his nature, but something that has been calculated, it is part of his strategy. He is an extremely cautious, suspecting and never acts spontaneously. One demeanor that rings true to me more
than ever watching Soeharto’s pictures and news footage was that when he tried to be friendly and warm, we barely feels the warmth he exudes. And if he is being warm and friendly, Anderson said that we have to be very cautious about what he hid behind the smile. (well, he is indeed a Javanese par excellence that way).

Much has been said that Yudhoyono have the potential to follow Soeharto’s footprints. Hey, he’s a Javanese, an army general (albeit U.S. educated and holds Ph.D in economics), married also to a Javanese woman, and much as stoic as Soeharto. And the most worrying sign that is however difficult to corroborate is Yudhoyono’s dalliance with Javanese mysticism (very Soeharto-like indeed). The most famous being his fixation with figure nine. The combination of his date of birth is nine so he does almost anything based on that number (well, not always) but the most famous example is that he broke several big news when the date strikes nine. One other thing that could show his Javanese mind set is his penchant for looking for guidance from the other side. In several occasion he made a visit to both his father’s and father in law (the famous general Sarwo Edhi Wibowo) ’s tomb before making important announcement. Well, of course there is nothing wrong about visiting your parent’s grave, but it’s the timing.

But if you think that this country is at risk of being led by another cruel and humorless general, think again. However dour he might be, Yudhoyono is at the very least an amiable person to go by. In fact, he likes jokes too, however dry. OK, he might be pale in comparison with Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid in this joke affairs. In out-of-palace functions, Yudhoyono frequently tells us jokes.

The day when he was about to break the news that a cabinet shake-up would take place in the early May – in the now famous durian plantation in Bogor – he cracked a joke about nutmeg and durian. He told us that during a visit to East Nusa Tenggara he inspected a nutmeg plantation when he stumbled upon a pile of that spice. And as he inspected the pile, he told us, one of fresh nutmeg fruit fell upon his head and he said “this is not fair, a fruit this useful only has a tiny size” and he strolled ahead.

Later in durian field, he discovered a pile of durian skin and while he observed it, a durian fell close to him. To us he said, “God the merciful, if only nutmeg is as big as durian then I would be dead when it fell upon me,” he said to a confused laughter among the audience. It’s not a funny joke (I read this joke in some obscure jokes book before and we all know that durian doesn’t grow in East NusaTenggara) but at least he tried.