Showing 1 – 2 of 2 results.
Self-published
Prices and Wages in Indonesia, 1938-1949 (ICPSR 240972)
Released/updated on: 2025-12-08
Geographic coverage: Indonesia
Time period: 1938-01-01--1949-12-31
This paper investigates how the Indonesian War of Independence (1945-49) influenced staple food prices, and how fluctuations in those prices, in turn, shaped the trajectory and dynamics of the conflict. We compiled a dataset comprising over 8,600 prices for staple foods covering the entire Indonesian archipelago from 1939-49, allowing us to estimate the effects of wartime conditions and the main Dutch military campaigns on food prices. We find that wartime price peaks were much more severe and prolonged than studies previously assumed, both in and outside Java. We show that the first large military operation, Operation Product, was partly motivated by high rice prices and demonstrate that these prices were significantly reduced across Java and Sumatra after the end of the military campaign. We then use a second dataset on wartime wages to estimate nutritional standards. These combined data suggest very low nutritional status of urban unskilled wage labourers—often below family subsistence level—in 1946 and first half of 1947. Our results point to broader entitlement failures driven by weak market connectivity amid military and economic warfare.When using these data please cite: I. de Zwarte, H. Moret & P. de Zwart, "Between Famine and Freedom: Food Prices during the Indonesian War of Independence, 1945-1949". Economic History Review.
Curated
ABC News "Nightline" Clinton Somalia Poll, October 1993 (ICPSR 6290)
Released/updated on: 1997-05-16
Geographic coverage: United States
Time period: 1993-10-01--1993-10-31
For this special topic poll, respondents were asked whether they approved of the way President Bill Clinton was handling the situation in Somalia, his decision to send 5,000 additional troops, and his decision to set a March 31 withdrawal deadline. They were also asked whether the United States troop withdrawal should be unconditional or conditional based on factors such as the possibility of an interruption in food distribution and another famine in Somalia. Other questions covered whether the United States should respond with a major military attack against warlord Mohammed Aideed's forces if American soldiers could not be freed through negotiations, and whether those American prisoners should be exchanged for the more than two dozen of Aideed's forces being held by the United Nations. The results of the poll were announced on the ABC television program "Nightline" the day the poll was taken. Demographic background variables include political orientation and sex.