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Solution Manual, Financial Accounting, IFRS 1st edition

noreply@blogger.com (sourceSite) — Thu, 26 Sep 2013 14:46:00 +0000

Book Title : Financial Accounting, IFRS 1st edition
Author(s) : Kieso, Weygandt, Warfield
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons © 2010

Chapter 1 Accounting in Action

Chapter 2 The Recording Process

Chapter 3 Adjusting The Accounts

Chapter 4 Completing The Accounting Cycle

Chapter 5 Accounting for Merchandising Operations

Chapter 6 Inventories

Chapter 7 Fraud, Internal Control, and Cash

Chapter 8 Accounting for Receivables

Chapter 9 Plant Assets, Natural Resources, andIntangible Assets

Chapter 10 Liabilities

Chapter 11 Corporation Organizations, ShareTransactions, Dividens, & Retained Earnings

Chapter 12 Investments

Chapter 13 Statement of Cash Flows

Transaksi Sepi, IHSG Kehilangan 45 Poin

noreply@blogger.com (sourceSite) — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 14:40:00 +0000

Indeks Harga Saham Gabungan (IHSG) pada penutupan awal pekan ini, Senin (22/7/2013) ditutup melemah 0,96 poin di posisi 4.678,98. Sepinya transaksi menjadi salah satu penyebab indeks melemah, meskipun di regional sebagian besar bursa ditutup menguat pada hari ini.

Dari 10 indeks sektoral, hanya dua yang menguat, yaitu agribisnis (0,94 persen) dan pertambangan (0,15 persen). Sementara itu, dua indeks ditutup tak berubah dari pembukaan hari ini, yaitu aneka industri dan infrastruktur, sedangkan sisanya turun dengan pelemahan terbesar dicatatkan oleh sektor konsumer (-1,52 persen).

Terdapat 93 saham yang naik, 147 yang turun dan 108 tak berubah. Adapun nilai transaksi pada hari ini hanya sebesar Rp 3,84 triliun, untuk 3,18 miliar saham.

Pada awal perdagangan, indeks sempat bertahan di zona hijau. Namun sekitar 1 jam kemudian, IHSG meluncur ke zona merah. Pelemahan semakin dalam ketika investor melepaskan saham pada menit-menit terkahir perdagangan.

Saham-saham yang menjadi top losers hari ini adalah UNVR (-3,90 persen), UNTR (-4,97 persen), PSAB (-16,66 persen), INTP (-1,80 persen), AMFG (-4,24 persen), dan AALI (-1,71 persen).

Sementara itu, saham yang menjadi top gainers adalah MYOR (1,51 persen), LPPF (3,65 persen), TGKA (9 persen), SMAR (2,38 persen), EMTK (3,44 persen), dan EXCL (3,27 persen).

Dari regional, sebagian besar bursa dikawasan Asia Pasifik ditutup menguat. Berikut adalah bursa di kawasan regional :

Shanghai Composite -- 2.004,76 (0,61 persen)
Hang Seng Hong Kong --21.416,50 (0,25 persen)
KLSE Malaysia -- 1.797,68 0,06 (0.00 persen)
Nikkei Jepang --14.658,04 (0,47 persen)
NZ50, New Zealand -- 4.554,04 (0,35 persen)
Strait Times Singapura -- 3.234,35 (0,66 persen)
KOSPI Korea -- 1.880,35 (0,48 persen)
Taiwan Weighted -- 8.105,45 (0,54 persen)

How and Why to Be a Leader (Not a Wannabe)

noreply@blogger.com (sourceSite) — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 14:33:00 +0000

by Umair Haque

We need a new generation of leaders. And we need it now.

We're in the midst of a Great Dereliction — a historic failure of leadership, precisely when we need it most. Hence it's difficult, looking around, to even remember what leadership is. We're surrounded by people who are expert at winning — elections, deals, titles, bonuses, bailouts, profit. And often, we're told: they're the ones we should look up to — because it's the spoils and loot that really matter.

But you know and I know: mere winners are not true leaders — not just because gaming broken systems is nothing but an empty charade of living; but because life is not a game. It isn't about what you have, and how much — but what you do, and why — if you're to live a life that matters.

Leadership — true leadership —is a lost art. Leaders lead us not to a place — but to a different kind of destination: to our better, truer selves. It is an act of love in the face of an uncertain world.

Perhaps, then, that's why there's so little leadership around: because we're afraid to even say the word love — let alone to feel it, weigh it, measure it, allow it, admit it, believe it, and so be transformed by it.

Wannabes — who I'll contrast leaders with in this essay — are literally just that: wannabes. They want to be who leaders are, but cannot: they want the benefits of leadership, without the price; they want the respect, dignity, and title of leadership, without leading people to lives that matter; they want the love leaders earn, act by painful act, without, in return, having the courage, humility, and wisdom to love.

When you think about chiefs, presidents, and prime ministers that way, I'd suggest that most of our so-called leaders are wannabes: those who want to be seen as leaders, without leading us anywhere but into stagnation, decline, fracture, fear, apathy, and comfortable, cheap pleasures that numb us to it all. Leaders — true leaders, those worthy of the word — do the very opposite: they lead us to truth, worth, nobility, wonder, imagination, joy, heartbreak, challenge, rebellion, meaning. Through love, they lead us to lives that matter. Wannabes impoverish us. Leaders enrich us.

So here are my six ways to start being a (real) leader — and stop being just another wannabe.

Obey — or revolt? Are you responding to incentives — or reshaping them? Here's the simplest difference between leaders and wannabes. Wannabes respond dully, predictably, neatly, to "incentives," like good little rational robots. They do it for the money and end up stifled by the very lives they choose. Leaders play a very different role. They don't just dully, robotically "respond" to "incentives" — their job is a tiny bit of revolution. And so they must reshape incentives, instead of merely responding to them. They have principles they hold dearer than next year's bonus — and so they think bigger and truer than merely about what they're "incentivized" to do. If you're easily bought off from what you really hold dear with a slightly bigger bonus, here's the plain fact: you're not a true leader.

Conform — or rebel? Are you breaking the rules or following them? The rules are there for a reason: to stifle deviation, preserve the status quo, and bring the outliers right back down to the average. That's a wonderful idea if you're running a factory churning out widgets — but it's a terrible notion if you're trying to do anything else. And so leaders must shatter the status quo by breaking the rules, leading by example,= so that followers know the rules not just can, but must be broken. If you're nail-bitingly following the rules, here's the score: you're not a true leader.

Value — or values? Why do people follow true leaders? Because leaders promise to take them on worthwhile journeys. The wannabe creates "value" for shareholders, for clients, for "consumers". But the leader creates what's more true, more enduring, more resonant: lives of real human worth. And they must do so by evoking in people values that matter, not merely "value" which is worthless. Which would you choose? In a heartbeat, most people choose the latter, because value without values is what reality TV is to a great book: empty, vacant, narrow, arid. If you're creating value — without setting values — you're not a leader: you're just a wannabe.

Vision — or truth? The wannabe sets a vision. With grandiloquent gesture and magnificent panorama, the vision glitters. The leader has a harder task: to tell the truth, as plain as day, as obvious as dawn, as sure as sunrise, as inescapable as midnight. Vision is nice, and many think that a Grand Vision is what inspires people. They're wrong. If you really want to inspire people, tell them the truth: there's nothing that sets people free like the truth. The leader tells the truth because his fundamental task is that of elevation: to bring forth in people their better selves. And while we can climb towards a Grand Vision, it's also true that the very act of perpetually climbing may be what imprisons us in lives we don't really want (hi, Madison Ave, Wall St, and Silicon Valley). Truth is what elevates us; what opens us up to possibility; what produces in us the sense that we must become who were meant to be if we are to live worthy lives — and one of the surest tests of whether you're a true leader is whether you're merely (yawn, shrug, eyeroll) slickly selling a Grand Vision, or, instead, helping bring people a little closer to the truth. And if you have to ask what "truth" is (newsflash: climate change is real, the global economy is still borked, greed isn't good, bankers shouldn't earn a billion times what teachers do, CEOs shouldn't get private jets for life for running companies into the ground, the sky really is blue) — guess what? You're definitely not a leader.

Archery — or architecture? Wannabes are something like metric-maximizing robots. Given a set of numbers they must "hit," they beaver away trying to hit them. The leader knows their job is very different: not merely to maximize existing metrics, which are often part of the problem (hi, GDP, shareholder value), but to reimagine them. The leader's job is, fundamentally, not merely to "hit a target" — but to redesign the playing field. It's architecture, not mere archery. If you're hitting a target, you're not a leader. You're just another performer, in an increasingly meaningless game.

love — or Love. Many of us, it's true, choose jobs we "love" over those we don't, readily sacrificing a few bucks here and there in the process. But this isn't love as much as it is enjoyment. Love — true love, the real thing, big-L Love — is every bit as much painful as it is pleasant. It transforms us. And that is the surest hallmark of a true leader. They have a thirst not merely for love — but to love; a thirst that cannot be slaked merely through accomplishments, prizes, or honors. It can only, only be slaked through transformation; and that is why true leaders must, despite the price, through the pain, into the heart of very heartbreak itself, lead.

And yet.

We're afraid, you and I, of this word: love. Afraid of love because love is the most dangerously explosive substance the world has ever known, will ever know, and can ever know. Love is what frees the enslaved and enslaves the free. Because love, finally, is all: all we have, when we face our final moments, and come to know that life, at last, must have been greater than us if we are to feel as if it has mattered.

The old men say: children, you must never, ever believe in love. Love is heresy. Believe in our machines. Believe in operation and calculation. Place your faith in being their instruments. Our perfect machines will bring you perfection.

I believe lives as cold as steel will only yield a world as cruel as ice. I believe cool rationality and perfect calculation can take us only a tiny distance towards the heart of what is good, true, and timelessly noble about life. Because there is no calculus of love. There is no equation for greatness. There is no algorithm for imagination, virtue, and purpose.

Even a perfect machine is just a machine.

If we are to lead one another, we will need the heresy of love. We must shout at yesterday in the language of love if we are to lead one another. Not just to tomorrow, but to a worthier destination: that which we find in one another.

It's often said that leaders "inspire". But that's only half the story. Leaders inspire us because they bring out the best in us. They evoke in us our fuller, better, truer, nobler selves. And that is why we love them — not merely because they paint portraits of a better lives, but because they impel us to be the creators of our own.

To Change the World, Invest in One Woman

noreply@blogger.com (sourceSite) — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 14:22:00 +0000

by Carly Fiorina

A fact I might have suspected before hit me with full force when I participated in the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ effort to outline “a vision for global prosperity.” After reviewing extensive research, a group of us made recommendations on how the United States could improve the outcomes of its development efforts and bring greater prosperity and stability to the world. We all agreed on one of them: Invest more in female entrepreneurs.

I’m talking about women like Alice Cyanzayire, who runs a small but thriving agribusiness in Rwanda; Christina Guatemala, who started a tiny general store known as a pulpería in Nicaragua; and Ana Serrano, who survived as a street child in the Philippines on scraps from the local dump but now owns a store.

Supporting enterprises like theirs is a huge opportunity, because, as the World Economic Forum has consistently found, the correlation between gender equality and national competitiveness is strong. The WEF annually measures the degree to which women experience less economic participation, remuneration, and advancement than men in various countries of the world. Even in the most developed economies, gross domestic product could be increased by as much as 16% if the gender gap were closed.

Why more has not been done to close this gap is a mystery to me. And here’s another puzzle: Where is the outrage? Of the estimated 2.5 billion people worldwide who live on less than $2 a day, 70% are women. How is it tolerated that the weight of poverty, trauma, and subjugation still falls hardest on them?

People often avoid looking squarely at a problem that is so immense that the appropriate action isn’t obvious. It is tempting to simply leave global issues to the aid community. But if you reviewed the numbers, or met some of the women behind them, you would be outraged—and you’d take the first chance you saw to make a difference.

To me, the imperative to take action is clear. The businesspeople I know have the scale and resources to support women entrepreneurs, and many of their companies have a good business case for doing so. For example, when Coca-Cola invests in training thousands of women entrepreneurs in Africa, it directly benefits from a stronger base of distributors and marketers. While I was the CEO of HP, we made corporate commitments using similar logic.

Meanwhile, as individual citizens, none of us should shrink from what we are capable of. In 2008, while working as an adviser to the State Department, I entered into a public-private partnership with USAID and helped found the One Woman Initiative. Condoleezza Rice, then the secretary of state, worked with us to support grassroots organizations that focused on women’s need for leadership training, job opportunities, and justice. The three women I mentioned above all benefited from an organization that OWI partners with today: Opportunity International, which works within the public-policy frameworks of some 20 countries to provide loans, training, technical expertise, and insurance.

Those three strong, successful women are a reminder that even with government, business, and philanthropy all contributing, progress often boils down to the initiative of one woman. With a small starter loan—just $136 for Alice, $330 for Christina, and $94 for Ana—she can invest in a fledgling business, go on to repay her loan, and lift herself, her family, and a part of her community out of poverty. The single greatest point of untapped leverage in the world today is a woman who could be an entrepreneur. So get outraged—and then get down to the work of supporting and partnering with her.

Defense Economics

noreply@blogger.com (sourceSite) — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 08:14:00 +0000

by: Gavin Kennedy

Defense economics, field of national economic management concerned with the economic effects of military expenditure, the management of economics in wartime, and the management of peacetime military budgets.

Opportunities foregone: the cost of war
There is no such thing as an inexpensive war. First, there is the human cost in loss of life and in the physical and psychological maiming of healthy people. While the personal cost of such loss is immeasurable, theeconomic cost to society can be estimated. This measure was first proposed by a French economist, Jean-Baptiste Say, in 1803. He asserted the principle that war costs more than its direct expenses, for it also costs what its casualties (military and civilian) would have earned throughout their lifetimes if they had never participated in war.

Second, war has economic costs arising from the destruction of buildings, productive farmlands and forests, public services such as waterworks, electricity-generating and distribution systems, roads, bridges, harbours, and airfields, and all manner of personal and corporate property such as homes, possessions, factories, machinery, vehicles, and aircraft. War, therefore, destroys physical capital that has been created by previous economic activity.

Reconstruction after war is a particular economic burden because the finance, imported capital goods, and labour used in reconstruction merely restore the losses a country has sustained, rather than adding to the stock of capital available to its economy. Thus, even if it manages to restore all its physical losses, it uses scarce resources that would otherwise have been available for extending and improving economic activity. As most wars since 1945 have occurred in the Third World, some of the world’s poorest countries have suffered the most from the economic losses of war.

War also costs a great deal in goods and services to create the weapons of war and to supply the people engaged in the war effort. The diversion of these goods and services—which range from the metals and chemicals transformed into weapons to the food, clothing, and shelter for the armed forces—reduces current civilian consumption, which lowers the population’s living standards. Metal used to make a tank cannot be used to build bridges, fuel used to transport military supplies cannot be used on school buses, cement used to construct ammunition dumps cannot be used in house construction. This constitutes the opportunity cost of war—that is, the extent to which the economy foregoes the opportunity to commit these resources to alternative peaceful uses.

The opportunity cost of war is also felt in the future. In addition to allocating resources to consumption (the satisfaction of current needs), an economy allocates resources to investment (the new factories and machinery that produce tomorrow’s goods and services). Resources diverted to war cannot be used to create new productive capacity for future consumption, and this reduces the living standards of the population below what they otherwise would have been in the future.

In summary, the total costs of war include the cost of the foregone use of the economic resources used up in the conflict. These include the cost of the foregone lifetime earnings of those killed in the war, the cost of lifetime medical care for those permanently incapacitated by the war, the cost of replacing the physical capital destroyed or damaged by the war, the cost of supplying the armed forces with the weapons of war, the cost of sustaining the armed forces and those in support functions (including their pay and pensions), and the losses to the economy caused by the diversion of resources from peaceful investment in future economic capacity.
Defense expenditure: the cost of deterrence

As war is expensive, countries aim to avoid its costs and remain independent within sovereign borders. In the absence of a universally binding and verifiable agreement to abolish war, the best option is to deter those countries prone, by their history or by the policies of their governments, to resolve disputes by resorting to war. Deterrence has two aspects. First, by allocating resources for a minimum level of military capability, a nation ensures that it can resist an attack by a potential aggressor and severely damage the aggressor’s economy and territory. In this way the costs to the aggressor of initiating a war will far exceed any likely gains. Second, by making credible its willingness to use military force, should it prove necessary to do so, the nation aims to leave potential aggressors in no doubt of the consequences they will suffer if they are tempted to launch an attack.

Deterrence, while expensive, is incomparably less expensive than war. The study of its expense constitutes the subject matter of defense economics.
Measuring the burden

Adam Smith, the founder of economics as a discipline in the social sciences, was the first economist to theorize about the economics of war. In his major work, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), Smith considered a perennial problem of defense management, namely, the increasing expense of war-fighting equipment. He noted that changing technology raised the costs of war—for example, that the musket was a more expensive item to acquire than its predecessor, the javelin. (In the same way, a modern jet fighter is much more expensive than its propeller-driven predecessor.)

The rising cost of weapon technology does not mean that defense costs (d) necessarily rise as a proportion of gross domestic product (GDP; the sum of all expenditures made in one year). The d/GDP ratio is a measure of the military burden, and evidence suggests that this burden has not risen through time (in high-income economies it has been falling for most of the post-World War II decades). Although the unit costs of specific weapons rise as technology adds to their capabilities, high-cost solutions to one form of a military threat (for example, the use of expensive tanks to defend against a massed tank attack) usually become vulnerable to low-cost alternatives (such as the relatively cheap antitank missile and precision-guided munitions), which either alter the nature of the threat or make redundant the high-cost solution.

In a developed economy, the annual costs of defense procurement and logistics typically take up more than half of the defense budget, the rest being spent on personnel. In the underdeveloped economies, the balance is reversed: most of the annual costs (70–90 percent) are spent on personnel, with the remainder spent on procurement and logistics. This difference reflects the gap in available war-fighting technology between the developed and the underdeveloped worlds. The bulk of the world’s defense spending is accounted for by the high-income economies (the United States, Europe, and the Soviet Union), primarily because of the cost of high-technology weapon systems. Yet most wars are fought in low-income countries between relatively poorly equipped armed forces. Moreover, the inability of low-income countries to maintain sophisticated weapons to the operational standards of their manufacturers fully explains the many logistical problems the armed forces of poor countries have faced in their wars. Importing sophisticated weapon systems does not guarantee a sophisticated defense capability if the support system (fuel, spares, ammunition, repairs, and overhaul procedures) is either less than satisfactory or less than adequately funded. Defense capability is inseparably linked to the cost of maintenance.

Defense is a public good; that is, once deterrence is achieved, all citizens benefit from the avoidance of war and no citizen can be excluded from enjoying the benefits. People who could not be excluded from a public benefit would, if given the choice, rationally choose not to contribute toward its cost. In other words, they could “free ride” on the contributions of others. For this reason, defense in all countries is paid for by taxation, a burden that is borne by all citizens, and in all countries the military force considered necessary for deterrence is under the direct and exclusive control of the government.
Comparing burdens

SETTLING ON A STANDARD
International comparisons of how governments arrange their defense spending are fraught with conceptual discrepancies. The defense burden of a country is measured by the d/GDP ratio, which indicates how much of the nation’s resources are being allocated to defense each year, but different estimates of both d and GDP are possible, each giving a different d/GDP ratio. Capitalist economies, which use the GDP, measure economic activity differently from communist economies, which use a net material product (NMP) system. The NMP excludes many expenditures, including state administration and defense, normally included under GDP. This complicates comparisons between these systems.

Defense expenditures themselves are subject to controversy. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has agreed on a measure of defense activity to which it adheres when making comparisons of its members’ defense burdens, but other countries follow different conventions. Some, largely low-income countries, exclude internal security expenditures, which can be relatively high, thus lowering their official d/GDP ratio. Others, such as the Soviet Union, exclude defense-related research and development, frontier guards, and paramilitary reserves, thereby reducing the nominal defense expenditure by up to 30 percent.

Even if agreement could be reached on what constitutes defense expenditure, this would still leave countries with a measure denominated in their domestic currencies. For meaningful comparisons of the absolute amounts spent on defense, every country’s defense expenditures would have to be reduced to a common currency. But the act of converting each currency into, for example, U.S. dollars could lead to distortions, because official exchange rates reflect official policies and not existing realities. Thus, two countries with similar amounts in dollars spent on defense, and therefore in balance in their defense capabilities, could face a growing imbalance in their dollar-based defense expenditures purely because one of their currencies has changed its exchange rate with the U.S. dollar.

Comparisons of the absolute amounts each country spends on defense are prone to error and must always be used with caution. Nevertheless, because each country measures its defense spending and its GDP in its own currency, the d/GDP ratio is an acceptable measure of a country’s defense burden. Ratios can be compared across countries and in different time periods. The d/GDP ratio rises rapidly during a major war—in Britain in 1944 the d/GDP ratio reached 60 percent—and it falls in periods of prolonged peace. A country raising its d/GDP ratio signals that it is concerned with security, in turn causing concern among countries likely to be affected.

DEFENSE BURDENS WORLDWIDE
Security expenditures for both external defense and internal law and order account for major shares of government expenditures. In many low-income countries, these expenditures often exceed 20–30 percent of the state budget and more than 10 percent of the country’s GDP. The higher-income countries, while spending higher absolute amounts on defense, tend to spend smaller proportions of state expenditure (under 15 percent) and smaller proportions of GDP (under 5 percent). Given the perilous security situation in the lower-income regions of the world, these discrepancies are understandable (if also regrettable in view of their other pressing needs).

By looking at the actual defense burden of an individual country and comparing it with the norm for similar economies, analysts can infer localized circumstances that may be influencing the government’s perceptions of security. For instance, a poor country with a very low d/GDP, or a rich country with a very high d/GDP, is behaving differently from the norm for similar economies. An economist would seek explanations for this in the perception of a threat indicated by the public statements of the government concerned. In the absence of such statements, or where public statements are contrary to the behaviour of the government (for example, if it is raising its d/GDP but publicly proclaiming its peaceful intentions and denying that it is threatened by, or is threatening, any other country), the economist would rely on the d/GDP as an indicator of true intentions. It is likely that the intelligence services of neighbouring countries would draw similar conclusions from the economic data.

Within the higher-income countries there are notable differences in the amounts spent on defense. The United States and Britain have spent relatively high proportions (5 to 10 percent) of their GDP on defense since 1955, compared with Japan, which has spent less than 1 percent of GDP over the same period. Germany and France also have tended to spend a smaller proportion of their GDPs than Britain on defense (though the absolute amounts have been similar, since they have larger GDPs than Britain).

The Japanese case is interesting because of the differences in economic achievement between Japan and the big defense spenders. Many economists believe that there is a connection between the amount of GDP spent on defense and a country’s economic growth, investment, and living standards. Japan’s limit of d/GDP to under 1 percent was a result of its defeat in World War II. There is no doubt that it benefited enormously from limited defense spending (particularly while it could free ride under the military protection of the United States), since resources not allocated to defense went into economic investment, to the direct benefit of civilian employment and output. However, at the same time Japan also spent much less (about half as much) of its GDP on general government expenditure (g) than the United States and western Europe. Whether it was the low d/GDP (1 percent) or the low g/GDP (9 percent) that allowed the resources for Japanese economic successes to be mobilized is arguable. A low g/GDP ratio implies a lower level of taxation than a high g/GDP. This releases a higher flow of savings into the economy, enabling higher investment ratios to be maintained. High rates of investment, which are associated with higher growth rates of GDP, characterized the Japanese post-war economy and are a more likely explanation for the Japanese economic success than its low d/GDP.

The Soviet Union has long spent a high proportion of its national resources on defense. Estimates vary, but the consensus among Western economists is that Soviet d/GDP for much of the postwar period was around 14 percent. (The official Soviet d/GDP was 6 percent.) If defense spending competes with economic growth in the capitalist economies, contributing to inflation, low investment, and lower living standards, then it must have a devastating impact on poorer economies such as the Soviet Union. The need to compete with the United States at all technological levels across the weapons spectrum has been met at the cost of heavy distortions in the rest of the Soviet economy. This has compelled the Soviet Union to review its priorities and to consider whether its security is best assured by continually raising the military ante with the West or by living at some lower level of military tension with a reduced offensive military capability.
Defense management: budgeting deterrence

“How much defense is enough defense?” is the great unanswerable question of defense economics. Those charged with preparing a defense capability tend to be more cautious about the level of capability than those who eventually have to pay for it. In fact, the very success of deterrence—a high probability of nonattack throughout a long period of peace—tends to reduce the amount of defense spending that the electorate considers necessary to achieve deterrence. Judging the appropriate level of military preparedness is not a science; it is a mixture of intelligent response to credible threats and of judicious, cautious preparation “just in case” this or that should arise. The managers of the armed forces tend to increase the contingencies they wish to prepare for, while skeptical taxpayers tend to question whether certain preparations are absolutely essential. In democracies this tension forms the permanent agenda of the defense debate.
Stocks and flows

Defense expenditures are made on an annual basis, the government allocating so much of its total budget to personnel costs, so much to the procurement of weapon systems, and so much to general support. The pay and allowances of defense personnel are consumed within the year; that is, they spend their wages, allowances, and pensions on consumer goods and, in so doing, add to total demand in the economy. Procurement, on the other hand, is somewhat different. A tank lasts much longer than the single year in which it is purchased. Because it is supposed to last as long as it takes to become obsolescent, the tank becomes part of the country’s permanent defense capability. That defense capability is, in economic terms, a stock, while the annual expenditure is called a flow.

Even if, for some reason, a defense budget is reduced in a single year, a country’s defense capability need not be reduced. The government can still draw on the stock paid for by previous defense budgets, which is manifested in its tanks, aircraft, ships, communications systems, trained personnel, and expertise in military affairs. Clearly, if the defense budget continues to be reduced every year, there will come a point at which the country’s defense capability will decline through attrition as items of equipment become obsolete or beyond repair.

The analogy is with a bath that is filling with water while the plughole is open. As water pours into the bath, water also drains from the plughole. It is the difference between the rates at which water flows in and out that determines whether the bath fills or empties. If the flows in and out are equal, the water level will remain constant. Likewise with defense capability: if the additions (flow in) to the stock of weapons matches the attrition (flow out) of the stock from all causes, then the country’s defense capability will remain constant.
Measuring a threat: the example of NATO

Budgeting a nation’s defense capability is complicated, however, because defense capability is not determined unilaterally; it depends on the capability of the potential aggressor. The gap in military capability between any two countries is known as the threat, and estimates of the threat constitute the major input into defense planning.

If a potential aggressor develops an advanced weapon system that effectively counters a weapon stocked by the defender, it will eventually threaten to overwhelm the latter’s defenses. Likewise, a growth in the stock of weapons deployed by a potential aggressor can eventually have a similar effect in threatening to overwhelm the defender’s smaller stocks. If the defending country does not invest in overcoming each new threat to its capability—by technology, new types of weapons, increasing the stock of current weapons, or all three options simultaneously—it will risk a reduction in the probability of nonattack—that is, its deterrence capability will be compromised.

THE ECONOMICS OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE
Estimates of the threat of a Soviet invasion across the German border determined the nature of NATO’s response for more than 40 years. While NATO planners considered their own forces to be technologically superior to the Soviet forces, they were nevertheless mindful that the Soviet Union had a decisive quantitative superiority in conventional forces (more tanks, armoured vehicles, artillery, combat aircraft, and troops). The threat of a land-based invasion by Soviet forces, which the planners considered to be virtually unstoppable, led directly to the decision to deploy nuclear weapons as the ultimate deterrent against an invasion of western Europe.

Nobody could survive a major nuclear war in Europe. The damage to the Soviet Union from an American nuclear strike would be matched only by the damage to the United States from a Soviet nuclear strike. Because each country has maintained sufficient nuclear forces to respond in kind to a first strike by the other, a nuclear exchange would be suicidal for both. Whatever the rhetoric, therefore, both countries have a strong interest in preventing war of any kind from breaking out on the continent of Europe. Literally, they are hostage to each other’s behaviour, making Europe an unsafe place to start a war. This doctrine, known as “mutual assured destruction,” was given the appropriate acronym MAD.

The consequences of MAD led NATO to adopt a policy known as “flexible response.” Rather than an all-or-nothing nuclear exchange, this envisaged a staged escalation of NATO’s response to a Soviet invasion, based on containing the initial thrust of the Soviet forces and warning them of the consequences of further encroachment on NATO’s territory. To underline the credibility of the threat of nuclear retaliation, NATO commanders were issued battlefield nuclear weapons, which NATO governments might or might not release for immediate use, with or without warning. Uncertainty about NATO’s policy of probable first use of nuclear weapons was regarded as sufficient to make Europe an unsafe place for the Soviet Union to risk the consequences of a conventional war. As long as the risk of the horrendous consequences of a nuclear war exceeded the prospects of potential gain from launching an attack, the probability of nonattack on western Europe by the Soviet Union remained at an acceptable level.

THE ECONOMICS OF CONVENTIONAL DETERRENCE
The possession of nuclear weapons by some NATO countries (the United States, Britain, and France) did not obviate the need for expenditure on conventional armed forces. To abandon conventional forces would risk having to use nuclear weapons as soon as the first Soviet forces crossed the German border or some naval incident occurred in any part of the world. This escalation from a small incident to the end of the world in one short step was unacceptable; hence, NATO countries invested resources in conventional capabilities in addition to nuclear weapons. These conventional forces aim to blunt a Soviet attack and give time for political processes to influence the Soviet government’s decisions.

Matching conventional forces to Soviet conventional capabilities had to take note of two facts: First, the Soviet Union had overwhelming superiority in conventional forces. Military doctrine holds that concentrating superior force at a single point can overwhelm the defense, and the Soviet Union had the capability to achieve such a strategic advantage at a time and place of its choosing. Second, while NATO had advantages in military technology, there was a constant effort by the Soviet Union to close the technological gap. Also, there is some point at which a quantitative advantage acquires a qualitative dimension, and this advantage cannot be neutralized solely by relying on a technological gap between the weapon systems themselves.

Thus the paradox of NATO defense spending. The alliance was constantly trying to widen the technological gap to compensate for its disadvantage in numbers, while at the same time it was required to maintain large quantities of its existing systems to redress the ever-widening gap in numbers that the Soviet Union was believed to be creating across the German border. Whether to develop ever-new weapon systems to combat a closing of the technological gap by the Soviet Union as well as the sheer numbers of Soviet systems, or to concentrate on supplying the armed forces with duplicate copies of existing designs, has long been NATO’s quandary.
Choosing weapon systems

Since the 1960s there have been several attempts to impose some rationality upon defense planning. The complexity of weapons development has few parallels in civilian development. Working close to technologicalfrontiers (sometimes having to think beyond them) under management systems imbued with a public-sector rather than a commercial ethos, under government budgetary constraints and shifting political priorities, and subject to ever-changing estimates of the threat the system is designed to counter, has produced an expensive and time-consuming procurement system. Lead times of 18 to 25 years from initial concept to in-service production are not unknown in defense procurement.

The need for more rational choices in weapon programs and in the deployment of scarce resources increased as the defense budgets grew in absolute size (though falling as a proportion of a growing GDP). The cost of errors in choice increases as the cost of a single weapon platform escalates, so that, with a new weapon system costing $10–40 billion, it is crucial not to find that it is not needed by the time it is in service, that the technology cannot be made to work, or that it has been made obsolete by new developments.

The Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missile program, begun by the United States in 1956, was the first highly complex system that required new management techniques to be brought to successful completion. One technique—called program evaluation and review technique (PERT)—found civilian applications after it was invented by the U.S. Navy to build Polaris on time and under budget. Similarly, earlier techniques such as cost–benefit analysis (invented to cope with submarine hunting problems during World War II) and input–output analysis (a technique developed by the U.S. Air Force for identifying the critical parts of an economy to develop or damage) rapidly spread into civilian use and into most academic management programs.

The first attempts to bring rational choice to the management of a defense budget coincided with the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Terms such as systems analysis, as well as planning, programming, and budgeting systems (PPBS) and functional costing, became common in defense management. Much of the intellectual capital invested in these techniques came from economists, whose discipline in costing options and marginal analysis provided them (if not always the defense managers they advised) a set of tools appropriate to the task.

When decisions are made solely by the lobbying of special interests—such as the navy, air force, and army—the result is likely to be a constant compromise under which programs remain in the budget because of political considerations. Defense analysts attempt to force the military lobbyists to set specific objectives for their programs and to accept criteria by which the military value of the programs can be judged. Like many management fashions, PPBS and its associated techniques did not survive in their earliest forms, but they did establish the belief that analyzing, evaluating, and choosing rationally was superior to lobbying by bureaucrats and, sometimes, by corrupting commercial interests.

This can be illustrated by the technique of functional costing. Ordinarily, most budgets are a listing of expenditures under various main headings—personnel, equipment, and supplies—and the total is approved through the political process. This type of budget is called an accountability budget because it accounts for defense expenditure, but it cannot inform the defense planner (or the taxpayer) how efficiently the defense department has spent the budget. Under functional costing, the objectives of a proposed military program are shown along with the costs of all the resources needed to fulfill each objective, irrespective of which armed service contributes to the activity.

For example, under functional costing there is no navy budget that costs everything spent by the navy. There is instead a maritime defense budget, a deep-sea navy budget, a coastal defense budget, and so on. These budgets may include costed contributions from units of the navy, air force, and army, plus an assessment of the costs of support functions used to carry out the activities. If, for instance, it is proposed to add a longer-range aircraft to the maritime defense role, this can be costed, and, depending upon the importance of extending maritime defense compared to other objectives, an informed decision can be made on whether to allocate the incremental funds to the upgraded aircraft or to some other project supporting some other military activity. Deciding between marginal increases or decreases in expenditures across different functions, all of them linked to specified objectives, is an improvement over buying aircraft simply because it is the turn of the air force to get a big project approved by the government.
Conscript or volunteer

Modern armed forces use either a voluntary recruitment scheme or a form of conscription to supply the people needed to staff the military. Each scheme has economic consequences.

Conscription involves a period of compulsory military service for all eligible males, usually triggered by their date of birth. (In some countries, such as Israel, females are also required to undergo military service, though usually in a support rather than a combat role.) Conscription provides a pool of recruits at a low cost per head. The conscripts receive extremely low wages, well below what they would earn as civilians. This difference in earnings is a direct monetary loss to them and a loss to society, which loses the output they would produce if they remained civilians. Conscription offers a net saving only to the defense budget, although what is saved in personnel costs is largely spent in increased training costs. Conscript armies require much larger training programs than volunteer armies because the service life of a conscript (two or three years) is shorter than a volunteer’s term of engagement (three to 15 years). Each new age group of conscripts has to be trained, diverting full-time soldiers from other duties as well as adding to overall costs.

Volunteer armies cost more per head because their wages must be comparable in some degree to civilian wages. While a national emergency can induce people to volunteer, a peacetime recruit is influenced by the alternative incomes that can be earned as a civilian. Some people volunteer whatever the wages, and some volunteer because they are unemployed as civilians, but most evidence indicates that volunteer rates will fall if military wages fall too far below civilian wages. This is particularly true for volunteer officers, who take with them critical skills when they leave the armed forces for well-paid jobs as civilians.

While volunteer armies cost more per head, they can cost less in total because they do not have to be as large as conscript armies. Although conscription is common across the three branches of the armed services, the proportion of regular volunteers to conscripts is smaller in the army and larger by far in the navy and air force. Ships and aircraft require more-skilled and better-educated personnel than infantry divisions, and the navy and air force in most countries tend to use conscripts only in less-skilled roles, reserving the command roles (pilots, captains, engineers, navigators) for volunteers. This pattern can be seen in many Latin-American military forces. In Israel, where conscription covers practically the entire population, the problem of retaining skilled recruits is met by extending the periods of military service through the civilian lifetimes of the recruits.

All personnel policies are vulnerable to demography. The proportion of a nation’s population that is made up of young people eligible by fitness and intelligence for military service sets a limit on how many can be conscripted or induced to volunteer. Conscript armies, which are cost-effective when there is a large pool of young people from which to choose, are particularly threatened by demographic changes that reduce the pool of potential recruits. As the birth rate appears to fall in higher-income economies over time, the prospect for mass conscript armies looks bleak. Switching to an all-volunteer force is a short-term alternative, although the decline in the recruitable age group will force up military wages as the armed forces compete with civilian employers for the same age group. Substituting technology for labour is another short-term solution. But it too has limitations, not the least of them the problem of recruiting from a shrinking age group a sufficiently educated and skilled labour pool to operate sophisticated military equipment.
War finance: when deterrence fails

War is too serious, and too expensive, to be left to the whim of chance, yet throughout history many governments have been willing to engage in war if it suited their interests as they perceived them, and many have also been dragged into wars when cooler calculations might have encouraged them to remain at peace. It was out of the need to raise the finance to conduct wars that the earliest systems for collecting public finance developed.
Taxation

The practice of taxing the population to pay for war has a long history. In early nomadic societies, wars could be fought with little expense other than time and casualties. Nomadic horsemen engaged in war as an extension of their normal activities as herdsmen. If successful, the warriors plundered the defeated, who were either killed, sold, or scattered. With more-settled agricultural societies, wars could be fought between planting and harvest, the armies living off of the land or the pay of the king. In the feudal system each man had an obligation to fight if required by the lord of the manor, to whom the vassal owed his livelihood. Weapons were often the personal possessions of the warriors and were fashioned by themselves, their forebears, or craftsmen. As weapons improved in quality and ingenuity, special efforts to produce them had to be made—for which their producers were paid out of public funds, as were the soldiers to whom they were distributed. These expenses necessitated the collection of special funds, and thus the government turned to levies on the population to provide the resources.

Where taxation alone was not sufficient to pay for a war, the king could resort to selling relief from feudal obligations (usually to prosperous cities), and to borrowing from rich individuals (who risked confiscation if they refused and not being paid back if they agreed). Most political crises in European history up to the 19th century arose from disputes over public finance, usually to pay for wars. The English Civil Wars of 1642–51 were a typical example of a bitter dispute between king and parliament over which had the powers of taxation.

By the time of the French Revolution in 1789, warfare had ceased to be a localized affair with a few thousand soldiers engaged in a single decisive battle. Warfare had become a massive undertaking, often lasting months and years and involving armies of hundreds of thousands. The expense of war reached levels unheard of previously. The Royal Navy, for instance, employed 200,000 men in the 1790s alone. Out of the need to find new sources of revenue for the long war between Britain and France from 1793 to 1815, the British government introduced a temporary income tax to be levied on all persons earning above a high minimum income. The advantages of the system soon became evident, and income taxes were widely adopted as permanent sources of government revenue.
Borrowing

The British government also discovered another source of revenue, the national debt. Whereas previous borrowings by monarchs were a great risk to the lender, under the national debt scheme the government agreed to guarantee regular payment of interest to all persons who lent to it, either in perpetuity or for a fixed term. Holders of government bonds were also permitted to sell them, passing the right to the guaranteed income to the buyer. Again, the system was so successful that it was soon copied by other governments, not all of them as scrupulous in their repayments as they promised. War bonds featured strongly in the two world wars, and it was regarded as patriotic to use personal savings to purchase them—though most of the borrowing came from institutions.

The new sources of war finance enabled the increased expense of war to be met—and, in the opinion of some economists, made it more likely that a government would embark on a war for less than good reason. If war had to be financed out of the current consumption of the population, natural limits would be set on war being undertaken lightly, but borrowing removed these limits. Though the population would be saddled with interest payments for decades to come, this cost was small and of long duration compared to the immediate cut in living standards that would have to be made to pay for a war in full.

War’s consequences: inflation and recession
A major modern war can divert from 40 to 60 percent of a country’s GDP, and one object of war finance is to release within the economy the resources needed for the war effort without causing inflation. If the government merely prints money to pay for the resources it requires, it will bid up prices in competition with civilians. The alternative is to reduce civilian consumption by imposing taxes at levels sufficient to force consumers to forego bidding for goods and services. The income from taxes can then be applied by the government to bid for the resources released by its program.

Taxation acts both to raise necessary finance and simultaneously to reduce aggregate demand, which releases the resources needed for the war effort. The war effort represents a substantial expansion of production, for which producers receive wages and profits. When these same producers attempt to spend their incomes, they face a diminished quantity of civilian goods available for purchase. They must either face rapidly rising prices (caused by excess money chasing insufficient goods), or they must restrain—or be restrained—from spending. A war economy therefore imposes higher taxes on wages and profits to reduce demand. War bonds and taxes provide finance for the war effort and reduce demand for civilian goods and services. To conduct a major war without such an austerity program risks inflation.

If inflation is a risk during a war, recession is another risk at the end of it. The massive expansion in production to provide resources for the war effort, if suddenly contracted by the cancellation of all defense contracts, throws large numbers of people out of work. The unemployed reduce their consumer spending, causing further cuts in aggregate demand, which throws yet more people out of work.

World War I was followed by recession. Because much of the war damage along the Western Front was confined to the vast, static battlefields across France, where the destruction was mainly human and the cost was mainly in war materials, there was no need for a massive reconstruction program. Also, the damage on the Eastern Front was swept behind the newly formed Soviet state, which for ideological reasons eschewed capitalist reconstruction. After the war factories closed down, removing a flow of wages and profits into the economy, the demobilization of troops put surplus labour into an economy that was already in recession.

Recession was averted at the end of World War II by reconstruction of the cities and economies of western Europe and Japan. Reconstruction rapidly transformed the war economies into mass consumer economies supported by the pent-up demand that had been frustrated by the lack of civilian goods and by high taxes during the war. In Europe’s case there was a transfer of capital from the United States through the Marshall Plan. As the war economies were dismantled, economic growth surged, and those countries that did best economically were those that dismantled their highly regulated, government-controlled war economies quickest (West Germany, for example). Those countries that were least successful in dismantling their regulated economies were the slowest to recover. Among these were Britain, which increased state intervention from 1946 to 1951, and the Soviet-controlled economies of eastern Europe, which went even further down the road of government-managed economies.

source: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/155696/defense-economics

Economic Development

noreply@blogger.com (sourceSite) — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 07:42:00 +0000

by: Anne O. Krueger, Hla Myint

Economic Development, the process whereby simple, low-income national economies are transformed into modern industrial economies. Although the term is sometimes used as a synonym for economic growth, generally it is employed to describe a change in a country’s economy involving qualitative as well as quantitative improvements. The theory of economic development—how primitive and poor economies can evolve into sophisticated and relatively prosperous ones—is of critical importance to underdeveloped countries, and it is usually in this context that the issues of economic development are discussed.

Economic development first became a major concern after World War II. As the era of European colonialism ended, many former colonies and other countries with low living standards came to be termed underdeveloped countries, to contrast their economies with those of the developed countries, which were understood to be Canada, the United States, those of western Europe, most eastern European countries, the then Soviet Union, Japan, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. As living standards in most poor countries began to rise in subsequent decades, they were renamed the developing countries.

There is no universally accepted definition of what a developing country is; neither is there one of what constitutes the process of economic development. Developing countries are usually categorized by a per capita income criterion, and economic development is usually thought to occur as per capita incomes rise. A country’s per capita income (which is almost synonymous with per capita output) is the best available measure of the value of the goods and services available, per person, to the society per year. Although there are a number of problems of measurement of both the level of per capita income and its rate of growth, these two indicators are the best available to provide estimates of the level of economic well-being within a country and of its economic growth.

It is well to consider some of the statistical and conceptual difficulties of using the conventional criterion of underdevelopment before analyzing the causes of underdevelopment. The statistical difficulties are well known. To begin with, there are the awkward borderline cases. Even if analysis is confined to the underdeveloped and developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, there are rich oil countries that have per capita incomes well above the rest but that are otherwise underdeveloped in their general economic characteristics. Second, there are a number of technical difficulties that make the per capita incomes of many underdeveloped countries (expressed in terms of an international currency, such as the U.S. dollar) a very crude measure of their per capita real income. These difficulties include the defectiveness of the basic national income and population statistics, the inappropriateness of the official exchange rates at which the national incomes in terms of the respective domestic currencies are converted into the common denominator of the U.S. dollar, and the problems of estimating the value of the noncash components of real incomes in the underdeveloped countries. Finally, there are conceptual problems in interpreting the meaning of the international differences in the per capita income levels.

Although the difficulties with income measures are well established, measures of per capita income correlate reasonably well with other measures of economic well-being, such as life expectancy, infant mortality rates, and literacy rates. Other indicators, such as nutritional status and the per capita availability of hospital beds, physicians, and teachers, are also closely related to per capita income levels. While a difference of, say, 10 percent in per capita incomes between two countries would not be regarded as necessarily indicative of a difference in living standards between them, actual observed differences are of a much larger magnitude. India’sper capita income, for example, was estimated at $270 in 1985. In contrast, Brazil’s was estimated to be $1,640, and Italy’s was $6,520. While economists have cited a number of reasons why the implication that Italy’s living standard was 24 times greater than India’s might be biased upward, no one would doubt that the Italian living standard was significantly higher than that of Brazil, which in turn was higher than India’s by a wide margin.

The interpretation of a low per capita income level as an index of poverty in a material sense may be accepted with two qualifications. First, the level of material living depends not on per capita income as such but on per capita consumption. The two may differ considerably when a large proportion of the national income is diverted from consumption to other purposes; for example, through a policy of forced saving. Second, the poverty of a country is more faithfully reflected by the representative standard of living of the great mass of its people. This may be well below the simple arithmetic average of per capita income or consumption when national income is very unequally distributed and there is a wide gap in the standard of living between the rich and the poor.

The usual definition of a developing country is that adopted by the World Bank: “low-income developing countries” in 1985 were defined as those with per capita incomes below $400; “middle-income developing countries” were defined as those with per capita incomes between $400 and $4,000. To be sure, countries with the same per capita income may not otherwise resemble one another: some countries may derive much of their incomes from capital-intensive enterprises, such as the extraction of oil, whereas other countries with similar per capita incomes may have more numerous and more productive uses of their labour force to compensate for the absence of wealth in resources. Kuwait, for example, was estimated to have a per capita income of $14,480 in 1985, but 50 percent of that income originated from oil. In most regards, Kuwait’s economic and social indicators fell well below what other countries with similar per capita incomes had achieved. Centrally planned economies are also generally regarded as a separate class, although China and North Korea are universally considered developing countries. A major difficulty is that prices serve less as indicators of relative scarcity in centrally planned economies and hence are less reliable as indicators of the per capita availability of goods and services than in market-oriented economies.

Estimates of percentage increases in real per capita income are subject to a somewhat smaller margin of error than are estimates of income levels. While year-to-year changes in per capita income are heavily influenced by such factors as weather (which affects agricultural output, a large component of income in most developing countries), a country’s terms of trade, and other factors, growth rates of per capita income over periods of a decade or more are strongly indicative of the rate at which average economic well-being has increased in a country.
Economic development as an objective of policy
Motives for development

The field of development economics is concerned with the causes of underdevelopment and with policies that may accelerate the rate of growth of per capita income. While these two concerns are related to each other, it is possible to devise policies that are likely to accelerate growth (through, for example, an analysis of the experiences of other developing countries) without fully understanding the causes of underdevelopment.

Studies of both the causes of underdevelopment and of policies and actions that may accelerate development are undertaken for a variety of reasons. There are those who are concerned with the developing countries on humanitarian grounds; that is, with the problem of helping the people of these countries to attain certain minimum material standards of living in terms of such factors as food, clothing, shelter, and nutrition. For them, low per capita income is the measure of the problem of poverty in a material sense. The aim of economic development is to improve the material standards of living by raising the absolute level of per capita incomes. Raising per capita incomes is also a stated objective of policy of the governments of all developing countries. For policymakers and economists attempting to achieve their governments’ objectives, therefore, an understanding of economic development, especially in its policy dimensions, is important. Finally, there are those who are concerned with economic development either because they believe it is what people in developing countries want or because they believe that political stability can be assured only with satisfactory rates of economic growth. These motives are not mutually exclusive. Since World War II many industrial countries have extended foreign aid to developing countries for a combination of humanitarian and political reasons.

Those who are concerned with political stability tend to see the low per capita incomes of the developing countries in relative terms; that is, in relation to the high per capita incomes of the developed countries. For them, even if a developing country is able to improve its material standards of living through a rise in the level of its per capita income, it may still be faced with the more intractable subjective problem of the discontent created by the widening gap in the relative levels between itself and the richer countries. (This effect arises simply from the operation of the arithmetic of growth on the large initial gap between the income levels of the developed and the underdeveloped countries. As an example, an underdeveloped country with a per capita income of $100 and a developed country with a per capita income of $1,000 may be considered. The initial gap in their incomes is $900. Let the incomes in both countries grow at 5 percent. After one year, the income of the underdeveloped country is $105, and the income of the developed country is $1,050. The gap has widened to $945. The income of the underdeveloped country would have to grow by 50 percent to maintain the same absolute gap of $900.) Although there was once in development economics a debate as to whether raising living standards or reducing the relative gap in living standards was the true desideratum of policy, experience during the 1960–80 period convinced most observers that developing countries could, with appropriate policies, achieve sufficiently high rates of growth both to raise their living standards fairly rapidly and to begin closing the gap.Hla MyintAnne O. Krueger
The impact of discontent

Although concern over the question of a subjective sense of discontent among the underdeveloped and developing countries has waxed and waned, it has never wholly disappeared. The underdeveloped countries’ sense of dissatisfaction and grievance arises not only from measurable differences in national incomes but also from the less easily measurable factors, such as their reaction against the colonial past and their complex drives to raise their national prestige and achieve equality in the broadest sense with the developed countries. Thus, it is not uncommon to find their governments using a considerable proportion of their resources in prestige projects, ranging from steel mills, hydroelectric dams, universities, and defense expenditure to international athletics. These symbols of modernization may contribute a nationally shared satisfaction and pride but may or may not contribute to an increase in the measurable national income. Second, it is possible to argue that in many cases the internal gap in incomes within individual underdeveloped countries may be a more potent source of the subjective level of discontent than the international gap in income. Faster economic growth may help to reduce the internal economic disparities in a less painful way, but it must be remembered that faster economic growth also tends to introduce greater disruption and the need for making bigger readjustments in previous ways of life and may thus increase the subjective sense of frustration and discontent. Finally, it is difficult to establish that the subjective problem of discontent will bear a simple and direct relationship to the size of the international gap in incomes. Some of the apparently most discontented countries are to be found in Latin America, where the per capita incomes are generally higher than in Asia and Africa. A skeptic can turn the whole approach to a reductio ad absurdum by pointing out that even the developed countries with their high and rising levels of per capita income have not been able to solve the subjective problem of discontent and frustration among various sections of their population.

Two conclusions may be drawn from the above points. First, the subjective problem of discontent in the underdeveloped countries is a genuine and important problem in international relations. But economic policy acting on measurable economic magnitudes can play only a small part in the solution of what essentially is a problem in international politics. Second, for the narrower purpose of economic policy there is no choice but to fall back on the interpretation of the low per capita incomes of the underdeveloped countries as an index of their poverty in a material sense. This can be defended by explicitly adopting the humanitarian value judgment that the underdeveloped countries ought to give priority to improving the material standards of living of the mass of their people. But, even if this value judgment is not accepted, the conventional measure of economic development in terms of a rise in per capita income still retains its usefulness. The governments of the underdeveloped countries may wish to pursue other, nonmaterial goals, but they could make clearer decisions if they knew the economic cost of their decisions. The most significant measure of this economic cost can be expressed in terms of the foregone opportunity to raise the level of per capita income.Hla Myint
A survey of development theories
The hypothesis of underdevelopment

If the underdeveloped countries are merely low-income countries, why call them underdeveloped? The use of the term underdeveloped in fact rests on a general hypothesis on which the whole subject matter of development economics is based. According to this hypothesis, the existing differences in the per capita income levels between the developed and the underdeveloped countries cannot be accounted for purely in terms of differences in natural conditions beyond the control of man and society. That is to say, the underdeveloped countries are underdeveloped because, in some way or another, they have not yet succeeded in making full use of their potential for economic growth. This potential may arise from the underdevelopment of their natural resources, or their human resources, or from the “technological gap.” More generally, it may arise from the underdevelopment of economic organization and institutions, including the network of the market system and the administrative machinery of the government. The general presumption is that the development of this organizational framework would enable an underdeveloped country to make a fuller use not only of its domestic resources but also of its external economic opportunities, in the form of international trade, foreign investment, and technological and organizational innovations.
Development thought after World War II

After World War II a number of developing countries attained independence from their former colonial rulers. One of the common claims made by leaders of independence movements was that colonialism had been responsible for perpetuating low living standards in the colonies. Thus economic development after independence became an objective of policy not only because of the humanitarian desire to raise living standards but also because political promises had been made, and failure to make progress toward development would, it was feared, be interpreted as a failure of the independence movement. Developing countries in Latin America and elsewhere that had not been, or recently been, colonies took up the analogous belief that economic domination by the industrial countries had thwarted their development, and they, too, joined the quest for rapid growth.

At that early period, theorizing about development, and about policies to attain development, accepted the assumption that the policies of the industrial countries were to blame for the poverty of the developing countries. Memories of the Great Depression, when developing countries’ terms of trade had deteriorated markedly, producing sharp reductions in per capita incomes, haunted many policymakers. Finally, even in the developed countries, the Keynesian legacy attached great importance to investment.

In this milieu, it was thought that a “shortage of capital” was the cause of underdevelopment. It followed that policy should aim at an accelerated rate of investment. Since most countries with low per capita incomes were also heavily agricultural (and imported most of the manufactured goods consumed domestically), it was thought that accelerated investment in industrialization and the development of manufacturing industries to supplant imports through “import substitution” was the path to development. Moreover, there was a fundamental distrust of markets, and a major role was therefore assigned to government in allocating investments. Distrust of markets extended especially to the international economy.

Experience with development changed perceptions of the process and of the policies affecting it in important ways. Nonetheless, there are significant elements of truth in some of the earlier ideas, and it is important to understand the thinking underlying them.Hla MyintAnne O. Krueger
Growth economics and development economics

Development economics may be contrasted with another branch of study, called growth economics, which is concerned with the study of the long-run, or steady-state, equilibrium growth paths of the economically developed countries, which have long overcome the problem of initiating development.

Growth theory assumes the existence of a fully developed modern capitalist economy with a sufficient supply of entrepreneurs responding to a well-articulated system of economic incentives to drive the growth mechanism. Typically, it concentrates on macroeconomic relations, particularly the ratio of savings to total output and the aggregate capital–output ratio (that is, the number of units of additional capital required to produce an additional unit of output). Mathematically, this can be expressed (the Harrod–Domar growth equation) as follows: the growth in total output (g) will be equal to the savings ratio (s) divided by the capital–output ratio (k); i.e., g = s/k. Thus, suppose that 12 percent of total output is saved annually and that three units of capital are required to produce an additional unit of output: then the rate of growth in output is 12/3% = 4% per annum. This result is obtained from the basic assumption that whatever is saved will be automatically invested and converted into an increase in output on the basis of a given capital–output ratio. Since a given proportion of this increase in output will be saved and invested on the same basis, a continuous process of growth is maintained.

Growth theory, particularly the Harrod–Domar growth equation, has been frequently applied or misapplied to the economic planning of a developing country. The planner starts from a desired target rate of growth of perhaps 4 percent. Assuming a fixed overall capital–output ratio of, say, 3, it is then asserted that the developing country will be able to achieve this target rate of growth if it can increase its savings to 3 × 4 percent = 12 percent of its total output. The weakness of this type of exercise arises from the assumption of a fixed overall capital–output ratio, which assumes away all the vital problems affecting the developing country’s capacity to absorb capital and invest its saving in a productive manner. These problems include the central problem of the efficient allocation of available savings among alternative investment opportunities and the associated organizational and institutional problems of encouraging the growth of a sufficient supply of entrepreneurs; the provision of appropriate economic incentives through a market system that correctly reflects the relative scarcities of products and factors of production; and the building up of an organizational framework that can effectively implement investment decisions in both the private and the public sectors. Such problems, which generally affect the developing country’s absorptive capacity for capital and a number of other inputs, constitute the core of development economics. Development economics is needed precisely because the assumptions of growth economics, based as they are on the existence of a fully developed and well-functioning modern capitalist economy, do not apply.

The developing and underdeveloped countries are a very mixed collection of countries. They differ widely in area, population density, and natural resources. They are also at different stages in the development of market and financial institutions and of an effective administrative framework. These differences are sufficient to warn against wide-sweeping generalizations about the causes of underdevelopment and all-embracing theoretical models of economic development. But when development economics first came into prominence in the 1950s, there were powerful intellectual and political forces propelling the subject toward such general theoretical models of development and underdevelopment. First, many writers who popularized the subject were frankly motivated by a desire to persuade the developed countries to give more economic aid to the underdeveloped countries, on grounds ranging from humanitarian considerations to considerations of cold-war strategy. Second, there was the reaction of the newly independent underdeveloped countries against their past “colonial economic pattern,” which they identified with free trade and primary production for the export market. These countries were eager to accept general theories of economic development that provided a rationalization for their deep-seated desire for rapid industrialization. Third, there was a parallel reaction, at the academic level, against older economic theory, with its emphasis on the efficient allocation of scarce resources and a striving after new and “dynamic” approaches to economic development.

All of these forces combined to produce a crop of theoretical approaches that soon developed into a fairly fixed orthodoxy with its characteristic emphasis on “crash” programs of investment in both material and human capital, on domestic industrialization, and on government economic planning as the standard ingredients of development policy. These new theories have continued to have a considerable influence on the conventional wisdom in development economics, although in retrospect most of them have turned out to be partial theories. A broad survey of these theories, under three main heads, is given below. It is particularly relevant to the debate over whether the underdeveloped countries should seek economic development through domestic industrialization or through international trade. The limitations of these new theories—and how they led to a gradual revival of a more pragmatic approach todevelopment problems, which falls back increasingly on the older economic theory of efficient allocation of resources—are subsequently traced.
The missing-component approach

First, there are the theories that regard the shortage of some strategic input (such as the supply of savings, foreign exchange, or technical skills) as the main cause of underdevelopment. Once this missing component was supplied—say, by external economic aid—it was believed that economic development would follow in a predictable manner based on fixed quantitative relationships between input and output. The overall capital–output ratio, mentioned above, is the most well-known of these fixed technical coefficients. But similar fixed coefficients have been assumed between the foreign-exchange requirements and total output and between the input of skilled manpower and output.Hla Myint
SHORTAGE OF SAVINGS

Given the broad relationship between capital accumulation and economic growth established in growth theory, it was plausible for growth theorists and development economists to argue that the developing countries were held back mainly by a shortage in the supply of capital. These countries were then saving only 5–7 percent of their total product, and it was manifest (and it remains true) that satisfactory growth cannot be supported by so low a level of investment. It was therefore thought that raising the savings ratio to 10–12 percent was the central problem for developing countries. Early development policy therefore focused on raising resources for investment. Steps toward this end were highly successful in most developing countries, and savings ratios rose to the 15–25 percent range. However, growth rates failed even to approximate the savings rates, and theorists were forced to search for other explanations of differences in growth rates.

It has become increasingly clear that there can be much wastage of capital resources in the developing countries for various reasons, such as wrong choice of investment projects, inefficient implementation and management of these projects, and inappropriate pricing and costing of output. These faults are particularly noticeable in public-sector investment projects and are one of the reasons why the Pearson Commission Report of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (1969) found that “the correlation between the amounts of aid received in the past decades and the growth performance is very weak.” But even in the private sector there may be a considerable distortion in the direction of investment induced by policies designed to encourage development. Thus, in most underdeveloped countries, a considerable part of private expansion investment, both foreign and domestic, has been diverted into the expansion of the manufacturing sector, catering to the domestic market through various inducements, including tariff protection, tax holidays, cheap loans, and generous foreign-exchange allocations granting the opportunity to import capital goods cheaply at overvalued exchange rates. As a consequence, there developed a very considerable amount of excess capacity in the manufacturing sector of the underdeveloped countries pursuing such policies.
FOREIGN-EXCHANGE SHORTAGE

In the 1950s most developing countries were primary commodity exporters, relying on crops and minerals for the bulk of their foreign-exchange earnings through exports, and importing a large number of manufactured goods. The experience of colonialism, and the distrust of the international economy that it engendered, led policymakers in most developing countries to adopt a policy of import substitution. This policy was intended to promote industrialization by protecting domestic producers from the competition of imports. Protection, in the form of high tariffs or the restriction of imports through quotas, was applied indiscriminately, often to inherently high-cost industries that had no hope of ever becoming internationally competitive. Also, after the early stages of import substitution, protected new industries tended to be very intensive in the use of capital and especially of imported capital goods.

The import-substitution approach defined “industrialization” rather narrowly as the expansion of the modern manufacturing sector based on capital-intensive technology. Capital was therefore identified with durable capital equipment in the form of complex machinery and other inputs that the underdeveloped countries were not able to produce domestically. Thus, foreign-exchange requirements were calculated on the basis of the fixed technical input-output coefficients of the manufacturing sector.

With high levels of protection for domestic industry, and with exchange rates that were often maintained at unrealistic levels (usually in an effort to make imported capital goods “cheap”), the experience of most developing countries was that export earnings grew relatively slowly. The simultaneously sharp increase in demand for imported capital goods (and for raw materials and replacement parts as well) resulted in unexpectedly large increases in imports. Most developing countries found themselves with critical foreign-exchange shortages and were forced to reduce imports in order to cut their current-account deficits to manageable proportions.

The cutbacks in imports usually resulted in reduced growth rates, if not recessions. This result led to the view that economic stagnation was caused primarily by a shortage of foreign exchange with which to buy essential industrial inputs. But over the longer term the growth rates of countries that continued to protect their domestic industries heavily not only stagnated but declined sharply. Contrasting the experience of countries that persisted in policies of import substitution with those that followed alternative policies (see below) subsequently demonstrated that foreign-exchange shortage was a barrier to growth only within the context of the protectionist policies adopted and was not inherently a barrier to the development process itself.Hla MyintAnne O. Krueger
EDUCATION AND HUMAN CAPITAL IN DEVELOPMENT

As it became apparent that the physical accumulation of capital was not by itself the key to development, many analysts turned to a lack of education and skills among the population as being a crucial factor in underdevelopment. If education and skill are defined as everything that is required to raise the productivity of the people in the developing countries by improving their skills, enterprise, initiative, adaptability, and attitudes, this proposition is true but is an empty tautology. However, the need for skills and training was first formulated in terms of specific skills and educational qualifications that could be supplied by crash programs in formal education. The usual method of manpower planning thus started from a target rate of expansion in output and tried to estimate the numbers of various types of skilled personnel that would be required to sustain this target rate of economic growth on the basis of an assumed fixed relationship between inputs of skill and national output.

This approach was plausible enough in many developing countries immediately after their political independence, when there were obvious gaps in various branches of the administrative and technical services. But most countries passed through this phase rather quickly. In the meantime, as the result of programs in education expansion, their schools and colleges began producing large numbers of fresh graduates at much faster rates than their general rate of economic growth could supply suitable new jobs for. This created a growing problem of educated unemployment. An important factor behind the rapid educational expansion was the expectation that after graduation students would be able to obtain well-paying white-collar jobs at salary levels many times the prevailing per capita income of their countries. Thus, the underdeveloped countries’ inability to create jobs to absorb their growing armies of graduates created an explosive element in what came to be called the revolution of expectations.

It is possible to see a close parallelism between the narrow concept of industrialization as the expansion of the manufacturing sector and the narrow concept of education as the academic and technical qualifications that can be supplied by the expansion of the formal educational system. If a broader concept of education, relevant for economic development, is needed, it is necessary to seek it in the pervasive educational influence of the economic environment as a whole on the learning process of the people of the underdeveloped countries. This is a complex process that depends on, among other less easily analyzable things, the system of economic incentives and signals that can mold the economic behaviour of the people of the underdeveloped countries and affect their ability to make rational economic decisions and their willingness to introduce or adapt to economic changes. Unfortunately, the economic environment in many underdeveloped countries is dominated by a network of government controls that tend not to be conducive to such ends.
Surplus resources and disguised unemployment

Two theories emphasized the existence of surplus resources in developing countries as the central challenge for economic policy. The first concentrated on the countries with relatively abundant natural resources and low population densities and argued that a considerable amount of both surplus land and surplus labour might still exist in these countries because of inadequate marketing facilities and lack of transport and communications. Economic development was pictured as a process whereby these underutilized resources of the subsistence sector would be drawn into cash production for the export market. International trade was regarded as the chief market outlet, or vent, for the surplus resources. The second theory was concerned with the thickly populated countries and the possibility of using their surplus labour as the chief means of promoting economic development. According to this theory, because of heavy population pressure on land, the marginal product of labour (that is, the extra output derived from the employment of an extra unit of labour) was reduced to zero or to a very low level. But the people in the subsistence sector were able to enjoy a certain customary minimum level of real income because the extended-family system of the rural society shared the total output of the family farm among its members. A considerable proportion of labour in the traditional agricultural sector was thus thought to contribute little or nothing to total output and to really be in a state of disguised unemployment. By this theory, the labour might be drawn into other uses without any cost to society.

It is necessary to clear up a number of preliminary points about the concept of disguised unemployment before considering its applications. First, it is highly questionable whether the marginal product of labour is actually zero even in densely populated countries such as India or Pakistan. Even in these countries, with existing agricultural methods, all available labour is needed in the peak seasons, such as harvest. The most important part of disguised unemployment is thus what may be better described as seasonal unemployment during the off-seasons. The magnitude of this seasonal unemployment, however, depends not so much on the population density on land as on the number of crops cultivated on the same piece of land through the year. There is thus little seasonal unemployment in countries such as Taiwan or South Korea, which have much higher population densities than India, because improved irrigation facilities enable them to grow a succession of crops on the same land throughout the year. But there may be considerable seasonal unemployment even in sparsely populated countries growing only one crop a year.

The main weakness in the proposal to use disguised unemployment for the construction of major social-overhead-capital projects arises from an inadequate consideration of the problem of providing the necessary subsistence fund to maintain the workers during what may be a considerably long waiting period before these projects yield consumable output. This may be managed somehow for small-scale local-community projects when the workers are maintained in situ by their relatives. But when it is proposed to move a large number of surplus workers away from their home villages for major construction projects taking a considerable time to complete, the problem of raising a sufficient subsistence fund to maintain the labour becomes formidable. The only practicable way of raising such a subsistence fund is to encourage voluntary saving and the expansion of a marketable surplus of food that can be purchased with the savings to maintain the workers. The mere existence of disguised unemployment does not in any way ease this problem.Hla Myint
Role of governments and markets

In earlier thinking about development, it was assumed that the market mechanisms of developed economies were so unreliable in developing economies that governments had to assume central responsibility for economic activity. This was to be done through economic planning for the entire economy (see economic planning: Planning in developing countries), which in turn would be implemented by active government participation in the economy and pervasive controls over all private-sector economic activity. Government participation took many forms: Public-sector enterprises were established to manufacture many commodities, including steel, machine tools, fertilizers, heavy chemicals, and even textiles and clothing; government marketing boards assumed monopoly power over the purchase and sale of many agricultural commodities; and government agencies became the sole importers of a variety of goods, and they often became exporters as well. Controls over private-sector activity were even more extensive: Price controls were established for many commodities; import licensing procedures eliminated the importing of commodities not given priority in official plans; investment licenses were required before factories could be expanded; capacity licenses regulated maximum permissible outputs; and comprehensive regulations governed the conditions of employment of workers.

The consequence, frequently, was that indigenous entrepreneurs often found it more financially rewarding to devote their energies and ingenuity to the task of procuring the necessary government import licenses and other permits and exploiting the loopholes in government regulations than to the problem of raising the efficiency and productivity of resources. For public-sector enterprises, political pressures often resulted in the employment of many more persons than could be productively used and in other practices conducive to extremely high-cost and inefficient operations. The consequent fiscal burden diverted resources that might otherwise have been used for investment, while the inefficient use of resources dampened growth rates.

Related to the belief in market failure and in the necessity for government intervention was the view that the efficiency of the price mechanism in developing countries was very small. This was reflected in the view of foreign-exchange shortage, already discussed, in which it was thought that there are fixed relationships between imported capital and domestic expansion. It was also reflected in the view that farmers are relatively insensitive to relative prices and in the belief that there are few entrepreneurs in developing countries.
Lessons from development experience

By the end of the 1950s the experience gained from efforts to promote economic development showed great differences among developing countries. Some had broken away relatively quickly from the import-substitution, government-control and -ownership pattern that had been the early development wisdom. Others persisted with the same policies for several decades. A great deal was learned from the experiences of different developing countries.
The importance of agriculture

Despite early emphasis on industrialization through import substitution, a first major lesson of postwar experience was that there is a close connection between the rate of growth in the output of the agricultural sector and the general rate of economic development. The high rates of economic growth are associated with rapid expansion of agricultural output and low rates of economic growth with the slow growth of agriculture. This is (in hindsight, at least) to be expected, since agriculture forms a large part of the total domestic product and of the exports of the developing countries. What is more interesting is that the expansion of agricultural output was by no means confined to those countries with an abundant supply of unused land to be brought under cultivation. Taiwan and South Korea, with some of the highest population densities in the world, were able to expand their agricultural output rapidly by a vigorous pursuit of appropriate policies. These included the provision of adequate irrigation facilities, enabling a succession of crops to be grown on the same piece of land throughout the year; the use of high-yielding seeds and fertilizers, which raised the yields per acre in a dramatic fashion; provision of adequate incentives for producers by setting producer prices at reasonable levels; and improvements in credit and marketing facilities and a general improvement in the economic organization of the agricultural sector. Agricultural development is important because it raises the incomes of the mass of the people in the countryside; in addition, it increases the size of the domestic market for the manufacturing sector and reduces internal economic disparities between the urban centres and the rural districts.
The role of exports

A second conclusion to be drawn from experience is the close connection between export expansion and economic development. The high-growth countries were characterized by rapid expansion in exports. Here again it is important to note that export expansion was not confined to those countries fortunate in their natural resources, such as the oil-exporting countries. Some of the developing countries were able to expand their exports in spite of limitations in natural resources by initiating economic policies that shifted resources from inefficient domestic manufacturing industries to export production. Nor was export expansion from the developing countries confined to primary products. There was very rapid expansion of exports of labour-intensive manufactured goods. This phenomenon occurred not only in the extremely rapidly growing, newly industrialized countries (NICs)—Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan, as well as Hong Kong—but also from other developing countries including Brazil, Argentina, and Turkey. Countries that adopted export-oriented development strategies (of which the most notable were the NICs) experienced extremely high rates of growth that were regarded as unattainable in the 1950s and ’60s. They were also able to maintain their growth momentum during periods of worldwide recession better than were the countries that maintained their import substitution policies.

Analysts have pointed to a number of reasons why the export-oriented growth strategy seems to deliver more rapid economic development than the import substitution strategy. First, a developing country able to specialize in producing labour-intensive commodities uses its comparative advantage in the international market and is also better able to use its most abundant resource—unskilled labour. The experience of export-oriented countries has been that there is little or no disguised unemployment once labour-market regulations are dismantled and incentives are created for individual firms to sell in the export market. Second, most developing countries have such small domestic markets that efforts to grow by starting industries that rely on domestic demand result in uneconomically small, inefficient enterprises. Moreover, those enterprises will typically be protected from international competition and the incentives it provides for efficient production techniques. Third, an export-oriented strategy is inconsistent with the impulse to impose detailed economic controls; the absence of such controls, and their replacement by incentives, provides a great stimulus to increases in output and to the efficiency with which resources are employed. The increasing capacity of a developing country’s entrepreneurs to adapt their resources and internal economic organization to the pressures of world-market demand and international competition is a very important connecting link between export expansion and economic development. It is important in this connection to stress the educative effect of freer international trade in creating an environment conducive to the acceptance of new ideas, new wants, and new techniques of production and methods of organization from abroad.
The negative effect of controls

Another major lesson that was learned is that poor people are, if anything, more responsive to incentives than rich people. Nominal exchange rates that are pegged without regard to domestic inflation have strong negative effects on incentives to export; producer prices for agricultural goods that are set as a small fraction of their world market price constitute a significant disincentive to agricultural production; and controls on prices and investment serve as significant deterrents to economic activity. Indeed, in most environments, controls lead to “rent-seeking” behaviour, in which resources are diverted from productive activity and instead are used to try to win import licenses, or to get the necessary bureaucratic permissions. In addition, in many countries, “parallel,” or black, markets emerged, which diverted resources from activities in the official sector. In some countries, legal exports diminished sharply as smuggling and underinvoicing intensified in response to increasing discrepancies between the official exchange rate and the black-market rate.
The importance of appropriate incentives

As a corollary to the lesson that controls may strongly divert economic activity from an efficient allocation of resources, it became increasingly evident that inappropriate incentives can adversely affect economic behaviour. The response of agricultural supply to increases in producer prices is considerably stronger than was earlier believed. Likewise, individuals respond to incentives with respect to their education and training. Thus, much of the overinvestment in education referred to earlier came to be seen as the result of artificially inflated wages for university graduates in the public sector and of the fact that university education was virtually free to students in many developing countries. As a consequence, students perceived an incentive to obtain university degrees, even when there was a chance that they would remain unemployed for an extended period of time. When they did eventually find employment, the high wage would compensate for their earlier period of unemployment. Privately, such behaviour makes good sense in response to existing incentives; socially, however, it represents a waste of valuable and scarce resources.
The role of the international economy

In the modern view of development, an open, expanding international economy is the greatest support that the developed countries can provide for developing countries. Foreign aid can be extremely helpful in situations in which policies are conducive to development, but development will in any event be accelerated if the international economy is experiencing healthy growth. Removal of the trade barriers that developed countries have erected against developing countries is at least as important as economic aid. Trade barriers are many. They include restrictions on temperate-zone agricultural products and sugar; restrictions on the simpler labour-intensive manufactured goods (which often can be produced more cheaply in developing countries) including especially the Multifibre Arrangement under which imports of textiles and clothing into developed countries are greatly restricted; and tariff escalation, or higher rates of duties on processed products as compared with raw materials, which discourages the growth of processing industries in the developing countries. The removal of these trade barriers can help those developing countries that have already shown their capacity to take advantage of the available external economic opportunities to grow even more satisfactorily and can also provide additional incentives for other developing countries to alter their economic policies.
Population growth

Still another lesson is the desirability of slowing down the rapid population growth that characterizes most developing countries. Their average rate of population growth is about 2.2 percent per year, but there are some countries where population growth is 3 percent or more. If the aim of economic development is to raise the level of per capita incomes, it is obvious that this can be achieved both by increasing the rate of growth of total output and by reducing the rate of growth of population. Development economists of the 1950s tended to neglect population-control policies. They were partly seduced by theories of dramatically raising total output through crash investment programs and partly by the belief that population growth could be controlled only slowly, through gradual changes in social attitudes and values. But it is now recognized that some births in developing countries are unwanted. Great technical advances in methods of birth control about the same time made possible mass dissemination at very low cost. Countries where these methods were made available experienced significant declines in birth rates, although significant changes in social attitudes and values are necessary before average family size declines enough to halt population growth. As soon as birth rates stop rising, the relative increase in population in the working-age groups and the higher income available to existing family members immediately start to release resources for increasing consumption and saving.
Development of domestic industry

The positive case for the expansion of the manufacturing sector may now be considered. It is based on the general assumption that the manufacturing sector will in due course become the leading sector, drawing in workers (in part, siphoning off a portion of the increase in the labour force that would otherwise tend to drive down labour productivity in agriculture) from the traditional agricultural sector and providing them with higher-productivity jobs than could be obtained in agriculture. Agricultural productivity would necessarily be rising simultaneously, as investments in that sector permitted increasing output. Whereas it was earlier thought that this process would follow the historical experience of countries such as England and Japan, the lesson from the successful developing countries is that by providing incentives and infrastructural support to encourage exports, there are significant opportunities for expansion of manufacturing of labour-intensive commodities, opportunities that can promote rapid growth.

Thus, given the much greater size of the international economy, and the much lower transport and communications costs that confront contemporary developing countries as contrasted with conditions in the 19th century, the potential for rapid growth is much greater now. Countries such as South Korea and Taiwan have experienced in a decade proportionate increases in per capita incomes that it took England and Japan a century to achieve. Whether other developing countries can follow this lead depends on a number of factors, including their economic policies and the continued growth of the international economy.Hla MyintAnne O. Krueger

The central problem of countries with low per capita output is that they have not as yet succeeded in making use of their potential economic opportunities. To do so, they must achieve an efficient allocation of the availableresources and provide incentives for resource accumulation. But efficient allocation of resources is not merely a matter of the formal optimum conditions of economic theory. It requires the building up of an effective institutional and organizational framework to carry out the allocation of resources. In the private sector this requires the development of a well-articulated market system that embraces the markets for final products and the markets for factors of production. In the public sector the development of the organizational framework requires improvements in the administrative machinery of the government, especially in its fiscal machinery.

In the setting of the developing countries, one is concerned not only with the once for all problem of efficient allocation of resources but also with improving the capacity of these countries to make a more effective use of their resources over a period of time. That is to say, one is concerned not only with the static problem of the efficient allocation of given resources with the given organizational framework but also with dynamic problems of improving the capability of this framework. From this point of view, there is no conflict, as some have maintained, between the static, or the short-run, considerations and the dynamic, or long-run, considerations. The two sets of requirements move in the same direction.

The problem of the efficient allocation of investable funds in the developing countries may be taken as an example. Static rules would require the developing countries to have higher rates of interest to reflect their greater capital scarcity. But many developing countries, under the influence of dynamic theories of economic development, have used a variety of direct and indirect controls to divert large sums of capital to the manufacturing sector in the form of loans at interest rates well below the level required to equate the demand and supply of capital funds. This practice has resulted not only in a wasteful use of scarce capital resources but also in a retardation of the development of a domestic capital market. Instead of developing a unified capital market for the whole country, it aggravates the financial dualism characterized by low rates of interest in the modern sector and high rates in the traditional sector. The policy of keeping the official rate of interest below the equilibrium rate of interest also results in an excess demand for loans, leading to domestic inflation and pressure on the balance of payments and to a discouragement of the growth of domestic savings. Few private individuals are prepared to buy government securities when they frequently carry rates of interest below the rate of depreciation in the value of money. Through the pursuit of “cheap money” policies that contradict the real facts of capital scarcity, the governments of developing countries have failed to make use of the opportunity of building up a domestic capital market based on an expanding volume of transactions in government securities.Hla Myint
Developing countries and debt

After World War II it was thought that developing countries would require foreign aid in their early stages of development. This aid would supplement the capital created by domestic savings, permitting a higher rate of investment and thus stimulating growth. It was expected that their reliance on official sources of additional capital would continue until their economies had progressed enough to gain them access to private international capital markets.

Until the 1980s this pattern seemed to evolve as predicted. In the 1950s almost all capital flows to developing countries were from official sources, in the form of foreign aid from developed countries or of resources from the multilateral institutions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. In the 1960s some of the export-oriented, rapidly growing countries began to rely on private international capital markets. Some, such as Singapore, attracted direct private foreign investment; others, such as South Korea, relied more on borrowing from commercial banks. In the 1970s many oil-importing developing countries were able to turn to borrowing from private sources when their economies were hit by the severe oil price increase of 1973.

The borrowing by rapidly growing countries was of the type earlier envisaged. Investment yielded a very high rate of return in these countries, so additional foreign resources could be attracted and productively used. However, some other countries borrowed in order to offset higher oil prices and in order to maintain an excess of expenditures over consumption, without developing the highly profitable investments with which to finance the debt-servicing obligations they incurred. Balance-of-payments crises and debt-servicing difficulties had been experienced by a few countries in most years since the 1950s, but with the second oil price increase and the worldwide recession of the early 1980s, developing countries increased their borrowing and total indebtedness sharply until commercial banks virtually ceased voluntary lending after Mexico experienced difficulty meeting its obligations in 1982. The result was that a large number of developing countries were unable to meet their debt obligations, as export earnings declined owing to the recession, interest rates were rising, and new money was not forthcoming.

For many heavily indebted developing countries, the consequence was a prolonged period of slow growth or even declines in outputs and incomes. The lessons were several: The buoyant conditions of the 1970s were not likely to recur, and policies that had sustained satisfactory growth rates in those conditions were not likely to do so in the future; countries that had not yet moved away from import-substitution policies and direct governmental controls would need to undertake structural adjustments rather rapidly in order to resume their growth and to restore creditworthiness; and future private lending to developing countries would need to be somewhat more discriminating as to the economic prospects of recipient countries.

Development in a broader perspective

Modern economic development started in Great Britain, which in the 1780s accounted for a little over 1 percent of the total world population at that time. Since then, economic development has spread in widening circles to other parts of the world, spurred on by a series of technological innovations, particularly in the form of improvements in transport and communications. In the early decades of the 19th century the circle of the developed countries was limited to western Europe. By the late 19th century the circle had widened to include North America, Australia and New Zealand, and Japan. By the early 1970s about 34 percent of the total world population belonged to the developed countries, which among them had 87.5 percent of the total world GNP. What are the prospects of the still-to-develop countries of Asia, Latin America, and Africa joining this circle of economic development?

On the negative side there are a number of factors that add to their difficulties. First, the level of per capita product in the present-day developing countries is much lower than in the developed countries in their preindustrialization phase (with the exception of Japan). Second, the present-day developing countries have large population bases and are handicapped by much faster rates of population growth. Third, they have generally a much weaker social and political framework to cope with the more explosive forces of discontent engendered by their reaction against their colonial past and by their internal economic disparities.

On the positive side, the present-day developing countries can draw upon a greater store of scientific and technical knowledge from the developed countries. The potential opportunities to exploit the “technological gap” are not confined to manufacturing. Modern science and technology can make immense contributions to agriculture, as illustrated by the Green Revolution created by the introduction of improved seeds and fertilizers in some Asian and Latin-American countries. Modern methods of birth control can make a decisive contribution in the race for raising per capita incomes. In addition, as the circle of the developed countries widens, they are bound to exert an increasing upward pull on the developing countries.

The economic growth of the developed countries has generally resulted in an expanding demand for the products and sometimes for direct labour services from the developing countries. But there are also the stronger localized pulls, such as the pull of the United States economy on Mexico and the pull of western Europe on the developing countries of southern Europe. The spectacular economic growth of Japan since World War II may also exert a similar pull on neighbouring countries in East Asia.

Countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore are rapidly approaching developed-country status, and the circle is widening still farther. Rapid growth rates are being experienced by many countries in Southeast Asia. If one considers the successful developing countries of the 1950s and ’60s, it is evident that the rapid growth of the international economy was a very positive contributing factor in their success. Future widening of the circle will no doubt depend in large part on whether the growth of the international economy attains a satisfactory level.

In conclusion, the experience of the postwar years has provided many lessons that form a basis for optimism. A great deal has been learned about the types of economic policies that are conducive to rapid economic development. Rates of growth of per capita income experienced by the developing countries have been significantly higher than had been achieved by the first countries to develop. Attainable rates of growth of per capita income appear to be far above what formerly was thought feasible. The chief potential obstacles to successful development appear to be the spectre of disintegration of the international economy, should protectionistpressures be increasingly effective, and the inability or unwillingness of leaders in developing countries to adopt policies conducive to rapid economic growth.

source: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/178361/economic-development

Economic Systems

noreply@blogger.com (sourceSite) — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 07:36:00 +0000

by: Peter J. Boettke, Robert L. Heilbroner

Economic systems, the way in which humankind has arranged for its material provisioning. One would think that there would be a great variety of such systems, corresponding to the many cultural arrangements that have characterized human society. Surprisingly, that is not the case. Although a wide range of institutions and social customs have been associated with the economic activities of society, only a very small number of basic modes of provisioning can be discovered beneath this variety. Indeed, history has produced but three such kinds of economic systems: those based on the principle of tradition, those centrally planned and organized according to command, and the rather small number, historically speaking, in which the central organizing form is the market.

The very paucity of fundamental modes of economic organization calls attention to a central aspect of the problem of economic “systems”—namely, that the objective to which all economic arrangements must be addressed has itself remained unchanged throughout human history. Simply stated, this unvarying objective is the coordination of the individual activities associated with provisioning—activities that range from providing subsistence foods in hunting and gathering societies to administrative or financial tasks in modern industrial systems. What may be called “the economic problem” is the orchestration of these activities into a coherent social whole—coherent in the sense of providing a social order with the goods or services it requires to ensure its own continuance and to fulfill its perceived historic mission.

Social coordination can in turn be analyzed as two distinct tasks. The first of these is the production of the goods and services needed by the social order, a task that requires the mobilization of society’s resources, including its most valuable, human effort. Of nearly equal importance is the second task, the appropriate distribution of the product. (See distribution theory.) This distribution not only must provide for the continuance of a society’s labour supply (even slaves had to be fed) but also must accord with the prevailing values of different social orders, all of which favour some recipients of income over others—men over women, aristocrats over commoners, property owners over nonowners, or political party members over nonmembers. In standard textbook treatments, the economic problem of production and distribution is summarized by three questions that all economic systems must answer: what goods and services are to be produced, how goods and services are to be produced and distributed, and for whom the goods and services are to be produced and distributed.

All modes of accomplishing these basic tasks of production and distribution rely on social rewards or penalties of one kind or another. Tradition-based societies depend largely on communal expressions of approval or disapproval. Command systems utilize the open or veiled power of physical coercion or punishment, or the bestowal of wealth or prerogatives. The third mode—the market economy—also brings pressures and incentives to bear, but the stimuli of gain and loss are not usually within the control of any one person or group of persons. Instead, the incentives and pressures emerge from the “workings” of the system itself, and, on closer inspection, those workings turn out to be nothing other than the efforts of individuals to gain financial rewards by supplying the things that others are willing to pay for.

There is a paradoxical aspect to the manner in which the market resolves the economic problem. In contrast to the conformity that guides traditional society or the obedience to superiors that orchestrates command society, behaviour in a market society is mostly self-directed and seems, accordingly, an unlikely means for achieving social integration. Yet, as economists ever since Adam Smith have delighted in pointing out, the clash of self-directed wills in the competitive market environment serves as an essential legal and social precondition for the market system to operate. Thus, the competitive engagement of self-seeking individuals results in the creation of the third, and by all odds the most remarkable, of the three modes of solving the economic problem.

Not surprisingly, these three principal solutions—of tradition, command, and market—are distinguished by the distinct attributes they impart to their respective societies. The coordinative mechanism of tradition, resting as it does on the perpetuation of social roles, is marked by a characteristic changelessness in the societies in which it is dominant. Command systems, on the other hand, are marked by their capacity to mobilize resources and labour in ways far beyond the reach of traditional societies, so that societies with command systems typically boast of large-scale achievements such as the Great Wall of China or the Egyptian pyramids. The third system, that in which the market mechanism plays the role of energizer and coordinator, is in turn marked by a historical attribute that resembles neither the routines of traditional systems nor the grandiose products of command systems. Instead, the market system imparts a galvanic charge to economic life by unleashing competitive, gain-oriented energies. This charge is dramatically illustrated by the trajectory ofcapitalism, the only social order in which the market mechanism has played a central role. In The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote that in less than a century the capitalist system had created “more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together.” They also wrote that it was “like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells.” That creative, revolutionary, and sometimes disruptive capacity of capitalism can be traced in no small degree to the market system that performs its coordinative task. (For discussion of the political and philosophical aspects of capitalism, see liberalism. For discussion of the political and philosophical aspects of communism and socialism, see communism and socialism.)
Historical development
Prehistoric and preliterate economic systems

Although economics is primarily concerned with the modus operandi of the market mechanism, an overview of premarket coordinative arrangements not only is interesting in itself but throws a useful light on the distinctive properties of market-run societies. The earliest and by far the most historically numerous of economic systems has been that of primitive society, for which tradition serves as the central means of bestowing order. Such economic forms of social organization are likely to be far more ancient than Cro-Magnon people, although a few of these forms are still preserved by such groups as the Eskimo, Kalahari hunters, andBedouin. So far as is known, all tradition-bound peoples solve their economic problems today much as they did 10,000 years or perhaps 10,000 centuries ago—adapting by migration or movement to changes in season or climate, sustaining themselves by hunting and gathering or by slash-and-burn agriculture, and distributing their output by reference to well-defined social claims. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas describes this distributive system in The Harmless People:

It seems very unequal when you watch Bushmen divide the kill, yet it is their system, and in the end no person eats more than the other. That day Ukwane gave Gai still another piece because Gai was his relation, Gai gave meat to Dasina because she was his wife’s mother.…No one, of course, contested Gai’s large share, because he had been the hunter.…No one doubted that he would share his large amount with others, and they were not wrong, of course; he did.

Besides the shared property that is perhaps the outstanding attribute of these hunting and gathering societies, two further aspects deserve attention. The first concerns their level of subsistence, long deemed to have been one of chronic scarcity and want. According to the still controversial findings of the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins, this notion of scarcity is not true. His studies of several preliterate peoples found that they could easily increase their provisioning if they so desired. The condition usually perceived by contemporary observers as scarcity is felt by preliterate peoples as satiety; Sahlins describes preliterate life as the first “affluent society.”

A second discernible characteristic of preliterate economic systems is the difficulty of describing any part of their activities as constituting an “economy.” No special modes of coordination distinguish the activities of hunting or gathering or the procedures of distribution from the rest of social life, so there is nothing in Eskimo or Kalahari or Bedouin life that requires a special vocabulary or conceptual apparatus called “economics.” The economy as a network of provisioning activities is completely absorbed within and fully inextricable from the traditional mode of existence as a whole.
Centralized states

Very little is known of the origin of the second of the great systems of social coordination—namely, the creation of a central apparatus of command and rulership. From ancient clusters of population, impressive civilizations emerged in Egypt, China, and India during the 3rd millennium bc, bringing with them not only dazzling advances in culture but also the potent instrument of state power as a new moving force in history.

The appearance of these centralized states is arguably the single most decisive alteration in economic, and perhaps in all, history. Although tradition still exerted its stabilizing and preserving role at the base of these societies—Adam Smith said that in “Indostan or ancient Egypt…every man was bound by a principle of religion to follow the occupation of his father”—the vast temple complexes, irrigation systems, fortifications, and cities of ancient India and China and of the kingdoms of the Inca and Maya attest unmistakably to the difference that the organizing principle of command brought to economic life. It lay in the ability of centralized authority to wrest considerable portions of the population away from their traditional occupations and to use their labour energies in ways that expressed the wishes of a ruling personage or small elite.

Herodotus recounts how the pharaoh Khufu used his power to this end:

[He] ordered all Egyptians to work for himself. Some, accordingly, were appointed to draw stones from the quarries in the Arabian mountains down to the Nile, others he ordered to receive the stones when transported in vessels across the river.…And they worked to the number of a hundred thousand men at a time, each party during three months. The time during which the people were thus harassed by toil lasted ten years on the road which they constructed, and along which they drew the stones; a work, in my opinion, not much less than the Pyramids.

The creation of these monuments illustrates an important general characteristic of all systems of command. Such systems, unlike those based on tradition, can generate immense surpluses of wealth—indeed, the very purpose of a command organization of economic life can be said to lie in securing such a surplus. Command systems thereby acquire the wherewithal to change the conditions of material existence in far-reaching ways. Prior to the modern era, when command became the main coordination system for socialism, it was typical of such command systems to use this productive power principally to cater to the consumption or to the power and glory of their ruling elites.

Moral judgments aside, this highly personal disposition of surplus has the further consequence of again resisting any sharp analytic distinction between the workings of the economy of such a society and that of its larger social framework. The methods of what could be termed “economic coordination” in a command system are identical with those that guide the imperial state in all its historical engagements, just as in primitive society the methods that coordinate the activities of production and distribution are indistinguishable from those that shape family or religious or cultural life. Thus, in command systems, as in tradition-based ones, there is no autonomous economic sphere of life separate from the basic organizing principles of the society in general.
Preconditions for market society

These general considerations throw into relief the nature of the economic problems that must be resolved in a system of market coordination. Such a system must be distinguished from the mere existence of marketplaces, which originated far back in history. Trading relations between the ancient Levantine kingdoms and the pharaohs of Egypt about 1400 bc are known from the tablets of Tell el-Amarna. A thousand years later Isocrates boasted of the thriving trade of Classical Greece, while a rich and varied network of commodity exchange and an established market for monetary capital were prominent features of Classical Rome.

These flourishing institutions of commerce testify to the ancient lineages of money, profit-mindedness, and mercantile groups, but they do not testify to the presence of a market system. In premarket societies, markets were the means to join suppliers and demanders of luxuries and superfluities, but they were not the means by which the provision of essential goods and services was assured. For these purposes, ancient kingdoms or republics still looked to tradition and command, utilizing slavery as a basic source of labour (including captives taken in war) and viewing with disdain the profit orientation of market life. This disdain applied particularly to the use of the incentives and penalties of the market as a means of marshaling labour. Aristotle expressed the common feeling of his age when he declared, “The condition of the free man is that he does not live for the benefit of another.” With the exception of some military service (see mercenary), nonslave labour was simply not for sale.

The difference between a society with flourishing markets and a market-coordinated society is not, therefore, merely one of attitudes. Before a system orchestrated by the market can replace one built on obedience to communal or authoritarian pressure, the social orders dependent on tradition and command must be replaced by a new order in which individuals are expected to fend for themselves and in which all are permitted—even encouraged—to improve their material condition. Individuals cannot have such aims, much less such “rights,” until the dominant authority of custom or hierarchical privilege has been swept away. A rearrangement of this magnitude entails wrenching dislocations of power and prerogative. A market society is not, consequently, merely a society coordinated by markets. It is, of necessity, a social order with a distinctive structure of laws and privileges.

It follows that a market society requires an organizing principle that, by definition, can no longer be the respect accorded to tradition or the obedience owed to a political elite. This principle becomes the generalized search for material gain—a striving for betterment that is unique to each individual. Such a condition of universal upward striving is unimaginable in a traditional society and could be seen only as a dangerous threat in a society built on established hierarchies of authority. But, for reasons that will be seen, it is accommodated by, and indeed constitutive of, the workings of a market system.

The process by which these institutional and attitudinal changes are brought about constitutes a grand theme—perhaps the grand theme—of economic history from roughly the 5th to the 18th and even into the 19th century in Europe. In terms of political history, the period was marked by the collapse of the Roman Empire, the rise of feudalism, and the slow formation of national states. In social terms, it featured the end of an order characterized by an imperial retinue at the top and massive slavery at the bottom, that order’s replacement by gradations of feudal vassalage descending from lord to serf, and the eventual appearance of a bourgeois society with distinct classes of workers, landlords, and entrepreneurs. From the economist’s perspective, the period was marked by the breakdown of a coordinative mechanism of centralized command, the rise of the mixed pressures of tradition and local command characteristic of the feudal manor, and the gradual displacement of those pressures by the material penalties and rewards of an all-embracing market network. In this vast transformation the rise of the market mechanism became crucial as the means by which the new social formation of capitalism ensured its self-provisioning, but the mechanism itself rested on deeper-lying social, cultural, and political changes that created the capitalist order it served.

To attempt to trace these lineages of capitalism would take one far beyond the confines of the present subject. Suffice it to remark that the emergence of the new order was first given expression in the 10th and 11th centuries, when a rising mercantile “estate” began to bargain successfully for recognition and protection with the local lords and monarchs of the early Middle Ages. Not until the 16th and 17th centuries was there a “commercialization” of the aristocratic strata, many of whose members fared poorly in an ever more money-oriented world and accordingly contracted marriages with wealthy merchant families (whom they would not have received at home a generation or two earlier) to preserve their social and material status. Of greatest significance, however, was the transformation of the lower orders, a process that began in Elizabethan England but did not take place en masse until the 18th and even the 19th century. As feudal lords became profit-minded landlords, peasants moved off the land to become an agricultural proletariat in search of the best wages obtainable, because traditional subsistence was no longer available. Thus, the market network extended its disciplinary power over “free” labour—the resource that had previously eluded its influence. The resulting social order made it possible for markets to coordinate production and distribution in a manner never before possible.
Market systems
The evolution of capitalism
FROM MERCANTILISM TO COMMERCIAL CAPITALISM

It is usual to describe the earliest stages of capitalism as mercantilism, the word denoting the central importance of the merchant overseas traders who rose to prominence in 17th- and 18th-century England, Germany, and the Low Countries. In numerous pamphlets, these merchants defended the principle that their trading activities buttressed the interest of the sovereign power, even when, to the consternation of the court, this required sending “treasure” (bullion) abroad. As the pamphleteers explained, treasure used in this way became itself a commodity in foreign trade, in which, as the 17th-century merchant Thomas Mun wrote, “we must ever observe this rule; to sell more to strangers than we consume of theirs in value.”

For all its trading mentality, mercantilism was only partially a market-coordinated system. Adam Smith complained bitterly about the government monopolies that granted exclusive trading rights to groups such as theEast India or the Turkey companies, and modern commentators have emphasized the degree to which mercantilist economies relied on regulated, not free, prices and wages. The economic society that Smith described in The Wealth of Nations in 1776 is much closer to modern society, although it differs in many respects, as shall be seen. This 18th-century stage is called “commercial capitalism,” although it should be noted that the word capitalism itself does not actually appear in the pages of Smith’s book.

Smith’s society is nonetheless recognizable as capitalist precisely because of the prominence of those elements that had been absent in its mercantilist form. For example, with few exceptions, the production and distribution of all goods and services were entrusted to market forces rather than to the rules and regulations that had abounded a century earlier. The level of wages was likewise mainly determined by the interplay of the supply of, and the demand for, labour—not by the rulings of local magistrates. A company’s earnings were exposed to competition rather than protected by government monopoly.

Perhaps of greater importance in perceiving Smith’s world as capitalist as well as market-oriented is its clear division of society into an economic realm and a political realm. The role of government had been gradually narrowed until Smith could describe its duties as consisting of only three functions: (1) the provision of national defense, (2) the protection of each member of society from the injustice or oppression of any other, and (3) the erection and maintenance of those public works and public institutions (including education) that would not repay the expense of any private enterpriser, although they might “do much more than repay it” to society as a whole. And if the role of government in daily life had been delimited, that of commerce had been expanded. The accumulation of capital had come to be recognized as the driving engine of the system. The expansion of “capitals”—Smith’s term for firms—was the determining power by which the market system was launched on its historic course.

Thus, The Wealth of Nations offered the first precise description of both the dynamics and the coordinative processes of capitalism. The latter were entrusted to the market mechanism—which is to say, to the universal drive for material betterment, curbed and contained by the necessary condition of competition. Smith’s great perception was that the combination of this drive and counterforce would direct productive activity toward those goods and services for which the public had the means and desire to pay while forcing producers to satisfy those wants at prices that yielded no more than normal profits. Later economists would devote a great deal of attention to the question of whether competition in fact adequately constrains the workings of the acquisitive drive and whether a market system might not display cycles and crises unmentioned in The Wealth of Nations. These were questions unknown to Smith, because the institutions that would produce them, above all the development of large-scale industry, lay in the future. Given these historical realities, one can only admire Smith’s perception of the market as a means of solving the economic problem.

Smith also saw that the competitive search for capital accumulation would impart a distinctive tendency to a society that harnessed its motive force. He pointed out that the most obvious way for a manufacturer to gain wealth was to expand his enterprise by hiring additional workers. As firms expanded their individual operations, manufacturers found that they could subdivide complex tasks into simpler ones and could then speed along these simpler tasks by providing their operatives with machinery. Thus, the expansion of firms made possible an ever-finer division of labour, and the finer division of labour, in turn, improved profits by lowering the costs of production and thereby encouraging the further enlargement of the firms. In this way, the incentives of the market system gave rise to the augmentation of the wealth of the nation itself, endowing market society with its all-important historical momentum and at the same time making room for the upward striving of its members.

One final attribute of the emerging system must be noted. This is the tearing apart of the formerly seamless tapestry of social coordination. Under capitalism two realms of authority existed where there had formerly been only one—a realm of political governance for such purposes as war or law and order and a realm of economic governance over the processes of production and distribution. Each realm was largely shielded from the reach of the other. The capitalists who dominated the market system were not automatically entitled to governing power, and the members of government were not entrusted with decisions as to what goods should be produced or how social rewards should be distributed. This new dual structure brought with it two consequences of immense importance. The first was a limitation of political power that proved of very great importance in establishing democratic forms of government. The second, closer to the present theme, was the need for a new kind of analysis intended to clarify the workings of this new semi-independent realm within the larger social order. As a result, the emergence of capitalism gave rise to the discipline of economics.
FROM COMMERCIAL TO INDUSTRIAL CAPITALISM

Commercial capitalism proved to be only transitional. The succeeding form would be distinguished by the pervasive mechanization and industrialization of its productive processes, changes that introduced new dynamic tendencies into the economic system while significantly transforming the social and physical landscape.

The transformative agency was already present in Smith’s day, observable in a few coal mines where steam-driven engines invented by Thomas Newcomen pumped water out of the pits. The diffusion and penetration of such machinery-driven processes of production during the first quarter of the 19th century has been traditionally called “the” Industrial Revolution, although historians today stress the long germination of the revolution and the many phases through which it passed. There is no doubt, however, that a remarkable confluence of advances in agriculture, cotton spinning and weaving, iron manufacture, and machine-tool design and the harnessing of mechanical power began to alter the character of capitalism profoundly in the last years of the 18th century and the first decades of the 19th.

The alterations did not affect the driving motive of the system or its reliance on market forces as its coordinative principles. Their effect was rather on the cultural complexion of the society that contained these new technologies and on the economic outcome of the processes of competition and capital accumulation. This aspect of industrialization was most immediately apparent in the advent of the factory as the archetypal locus of production. In Smith’s time the individual enterprise was still small—the opening pages of The Wealth of Nations describe the effects of the division of labour in a 10-man pin factory—but by the early 19th century the increasing mechanization of labour, coupled with the application of waterpower and steam power, had raised the size of the workforce in an ordinary textile mill to several hundreds; by mid-century in the steel mills it was up to several thousands, and by the end of the century in the railways it was in the tens of thousands.

The increase in the scale of employment brought a marked change in the character of work itself. In Smith’s day the social distance between employer and labourer was still sufficiently small that the very wordmanufacturer implied an occupation (a mechanic) as well as an ownership position. However, early in the 19th century William Blake referred to factories as “dark Satanic mills” in his epic poem Jerusalem, and by the 1830s a great gulf had opened between the manufacturers, who were now a propertied business class, and the men, women, and children who tended machinery and laboured in factories for 10- and 12-hour stints. It was from the spectacle of mill labour, described in unsparing detail by the inspectors authorized by the first Factory Act of 1802, that Marx drew much of the indignation that animated his analysis of capitalism. More important, it was from this same factory setting, and from the urban squalor that industrialization also brought, that capitalism derived much of the social consciousness—sometimes revolutionary, sometimes reformist—that was to play so large a part in its subsequent political life. Works such as Charles Dickens’s Hard Times (1854) depicted the factory system’s inhumanity and the underlying economic doctrines that supposedly justified it. While these works brought attention to the social problems stemming from industrialization, they also tended to discount the significant improvements in the overall standard of living (as measured by the increases in life expectancy and material comforts) that accompanied modernization. Country life of just a generation earlier had been no less cruel, and in some respects it was more inhuman than the factory system being criticized. Those critics who failed to compare the era of industrialization with the one that immediately preceded it also failed to account for the social and economic progress that had touched the lives of ordinary people.

The degradation of the physical and social landscape was the aspect of industrialization that first attracted attention, but it was its slower-acting impact on economic growth that was ultimately to be judged its most significant effect. A single statistic may dramatize this process. Between 1788 and 1839 the output of pig iron in Britain rose from 68,000 to 1,347,000 tons. To fully grasp the significance of this 20-fold increase, one has to consider the proliferation of iron pumps, iron machine tools, iron pipes, iron rails, and iron beams that it made possible; these iron implements, in turn, contributed to faster and more dependable production systems. This was the means by which the first Industrial Revolution promoted economic growth, not immediately but with gathering momentum. Thirty years later this effect would be repeated with even more spectacular results when the Bessemer converter ushered in the age of steel rails, ships, machines, girders, wires, pipes, and containers.

The most important consequence of the industrialization of capitalism was therefore its powerful effect on enhancing what Marx called “the forces of production”—the source of what is now called the standard of living. The Swiss economic demographer Paul Bairoch calculated that gross national product (GNP) per capita in the developed countries rose from $180 in the 1750s (in dollars of 1960 purchasing power) to $780 in the 1930s and then to $3,000 in the 1980s, whereas the per capita income of the less-developed countries remained unchanged at about $180–$190 from 1750 to 1930 and thereafter rose only to $410 in 1980. (This seemingly persistent gap between the richest and the poorest countries, which contradicts the predictions of the standard theory of economic growth, has increasingly occupied the attention of contemporary economists. Although the question is answered in part by explaining that the rich countries have experienced industrialization and the poor ones have not, the question remains why some have experienced industrialization and others have not.)

The development of industrialization was accompanied by periodic instability in the 18th and 19th centuries. Not surprisingly, then, one side effect of industrialization was the effort to minimize or prevent economic shocks by linking firms together into cartels or trusts or simply into giant integrated enterprises. Although these efforts dampened the repercussions of individual miscalculations, they were insufficient to guard against the effects of speculative panics or commercial convulsions. By the end of the 19th century, economic depressions had become a worrisome and recurrent problem, and the Great Depression of the 1930s rocked the entire capitalist world. During that debacle, GNP in the United States fell by almost 50 percent, business investment fell by 94 percent, and unemployment rose from 3.2 to nearly 25 percent of the civilian labour force. Economists have long debated the causes of the extraordinary increase in economic instability from 1830 to 1930. Some point to the impact of growth in the scale of production evidenced by the shift from small pin factories to giant enterprises. Others emphasize the role of miscalculations and mismatches in production. And still other explanations range from the inherent instability of capitalist production (particularly for large-scale enterprises) to the failure of government policy (especially with regard to the monetary system).
FROM INDUSTRIAL TO STATE CAPITALISM

The perceived problem of inherent instability takes on further importance insofar as it is a principal cause of the next structural phase of the system. The new phase is often described as state capitalism because its outstanding feature is the enlargement in size and functions of the public realm. In 1929, for example, total U.S. government expenditures—federal, state, and local—came to less than one-tenth of GNP; from the 1970s they amounted to roughly one-third. This increase is observable in all major capitalist nations, many of which have reached considerably higher ratios of government disbursements to GNP than the United States.

At the same time, the function of government changed as decisively as its size. Already by the last quarter of the 19th century, the emergence of great industrial trusts had provoked legislation in the United States (although not in Europe) to curb the monopolistic tendencies of industrialization. Apart from these antitrust laws and the regulation of a few industries of special public concern, however, the functions of the federal government were not significantly broadened from Smith’s vision. Prior to the Great Depression, for example, the great bulk of federal outlays went for defense and international relations, for general administrative expense and interest on the debt, and for the post office.

The Great Depression radically altered this limited view of government in the United States, as it had earlier begun to widen it in Europe. The provision of old-age pensions, relief for the hungry and poor, and a dole for the unemployed were all policies inaugurated by the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, following the example of similar enlargements of government functions in Britain, France, and Germany. From the 1970s onward, such new kinds of federal spending—under the designation of social security, health, education, and welfare programs—grew to be 20 to 50 percent larger than the traditional categories of federal spending.

Thus, one very important element in the advent of a new stage of capitalism was the emergence of a large public sector expected to serve as a guarantor of public economic well-being, a function that would never have occurred to Smith. A second and equally important departure was the new assumption that governments themselves were responsible for the general course of economic conditions. This was a change of policy orientation that also emerged from the challenge of the Great Depression. Once regarded as a matter beyond remedy, the general level of national income came to be seen by the end of the 1930s as the responsibility of government, although the measures taken to improve conditions were on the whole timid, often wrongheaded (such as highly protectionist trade policies), and only modestly successful. Nonetheless, the appearance in that decade of a new economic accountability for government constitutes in itself sufficient reason to describe capitalism today in terms that distinguish it from its industrial, but largely unguided, past.

There is little doubt that capitalism will continue to undergo still further structural alterations. Technological advances are rapidly reducing to near insignificance the once-formidable barriers and opportunities of economic geography. Among the startling consequences of this technological leveling of the world have been the large displacements of high-tech manufacturing from Europe and North America to the low-wage regions of Southwest Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Another change has been the unprecedented growth of international finance to the point that, by the beginning of the 21st century, the total value of transactions in foreign exchange was estimated to be at least 20 times that of all foreign movements of goods and services. This boundary-blind internationalization of finance, combined with the boundary-defying ability of large corporations to locate their operations in low-wage countries, poses a challenge to the traditional economic sovereignty of nations, a challenge arising from the new capabilities of capital itself.

A third change again involves the international economy, this time through the creation of new institutions for the management of international economic trade. A number of capitalist nations have met the challenges of the fast-growing international economy by joining the energies of the private sector (including organized labour) to the financial and negotiating powers of the state. This “corporatist” approach, most clearly evident in the organization of the Japanese economy, was viewed with great promise in the 1980s but in the 1990s was found to be severely vulnerable to opportunistic behaviour by individuals in both the public and the private sectors. Thus, at the onset of the 21st century, the consensus on the economic role of government in capitalism shifted back from the social democratic interventionism of the Keynesian system and the managed market economies of the “Asian tigers” (countries such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and South Korea that experienced rapid growth in the late 20th century) to the more noninterventionist model of Adam Smith and the classical economists.

It is not necessary, however, to venture risky predictions concerning economic policy. Rather, it seems more useful to posit two generalizations. The first emphasizes that capitalism in all its variations continues to be distinguished from other economic systems by the priority accorded to the drive for wealth and the centrality of the competitive mechanism that channels this drive toward those ends that the market rewards. The spirit of enterprise, fueled by the acquisitive culture of the market, is the source of the dynamism of capitalism. The second generalization is that this driving force and constraining mechanism appear to be compatible with a wide variety of institutional settings, including substantial variations in the relationships between the private and public sectors. The form of capitalism taken also differs between nations, because the practice of it is embedded within cultures; even the forces of globalization and the threat of homogenization have proved to be more myth than reality. Markets cater to national culture as much as national culture mutates to conform to the discipline of profit and loss. It is to this very adaptability that capitalism appears to owe its continued vitality.
Criticisms of capitalism

Advocates and critics of capitalism agree that its distinctive contribution to history has been the encouragement of economic growth. Capitalist growth is not, however, regarded as an unalloyed benefit by its critics. Its negative side derives from three dysfunctions that reflect its market origins.
THE UNRELIABILITY OF GROWTH

The first of these problems is already familiar from the previous discussion of the stages of capitalist development. Many critics have alleged that the capitalist system suffers from inherent instability that has characterized and plagued the system since the advent of industrialization. Because capitalist growth is driven by profit expectations, it fluctuates with the changes in technological or social opportunities for capital accumulation. As opportunities appear, capital rushes in to take advantage of them, bringing as a consequence the familiar attributes of a boom. Sooner or later, however, the rush subsides as the demand for the new products or services becomes saturated, bringing a halt to investment, a shakeout in the main industries caught up in the previous boom, and the advent of recession. Hence, economic growth comes at the price of a succession of market gluts as booms meet their inevitable end.

This criticism did not receive its full exposition until the publication of the first volume of Marx’s Das Kapital in 1867. For Marx, the path of growth is not only unstable for the reasons just mentioned—Marx called such uncoordinated movements the “anarchy” of the market—but increasingly unstable. Marx believed that the reason for this is also familiar. It is the result of the industrialization process, which leads toward large-scale enterprises. As each saturation brings growth to a halt, a process of winnowing takes place in which the more successful firms are able to acquire the assets of the less successful. Thus, the very dynamics of growth tend to concentrate capital into ever-larger firms. This leads to still more massive disruptions when the next boom ends, a process that terminates, according to Marx, only when the temper of the working class snaps and capitalism is replaced by socialism.

Beginning in the 1930s, Marx’s apocalyptic expectations were largely replaced by the less-violent but equally disquieting views of the English economist John Maynard Keynes, first set forth in his influential The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936). Keynes believed that the basic problem of capitalism is not so much its vulnerability to periodic saturations of investment as its likely failure to recover from them. He raised the possibility that a capitalist system could remain indefinitely in a condition of equilibrium despite high unemployment, a possibility not only entirely novel (even Marx believed that the system would recover its momentum after each crisis) but also made plausible by the persistent unemployment of the 1930s. Keynes therefore raised the prospect that growth would end in stagnation, a condition for which the only remedy he saw was “a somewhat comprehensive socialization of investment.”
THE QUALITY OF GROWTH

A second criticism with respect to market-driven growth focuses on the adverse side effects generated by a system of production that is held accountable only to the test of profitability. It is in the nature of a complex industrial society that the production processes of many commodities generate “bads” as well as “goods”—e.g., toxic wastes or unhealthy working conditions as well as useful products.

The catalog of such market-generated ills is very long. Smith himself warned that the division of labour, by routinizing work, would render workers “as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become,” and Marx raised the spectre of alienation as the social price paid for subordinating production to the imperatives of profit making. Other economists warned that the introduction of technology designed to cut labour costs would create permanent unemployment. In modern times much attention has focused on the power of physical and chemical processes to surpass the carrying capacity of the environment—a concern made cogent by various types of environmental damage arising from excessive discharges of industrial effluents and pollutants. Because these social and ecological challenges spring from the extraordinary powers of technology, they can be viewed as side effects of socialist as well as capitalist growth. But the argument can be made that market growth, by virtue of its overriding obedience to profit, is congenitally blind to such externalities.
EQUITY

A third criticism of capitalist growth concerns the fairness with which capitalism distributes its expanding wealth or with which it shares its recurrent hardships. This criticism assumes both specific and general forms.

The specific form focuses on disparities in income among layers of the population. At the turn of the 21st century in the United States, for example, the lowest fifth of all households received only 3.6 percent of total income, whereas the topmost fifth received 49 percent. Significantly, this disparity results from the concentration of assets in the upper brackets. Also, the disparity is the consequence of highly skewed patterns of corporate rewards that typically give, say, chief executive officers of large companies 50 to 100 times more income than those of ordinary office or factory employees. Income disparities, however, should be understood in perspective, as they stem from a number of causes. In its 1995 annual report the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas observed,

By definition, there will always be a bottom 20 percent, but only in a strict caste society will it contain the same individuals and families year after year.

Moving from specific examples of distribution to a more general level, the criticism may be broadened to an indictment of the market principle itself as the regulator of incomes. An advocate of market-determined distribution will declare that in a market-based society, with certain exceptions, people tend to be paid what they are worth—that is, their incomes will reflect the value of their contribution to production. Thus, market-based rewards lead to the efficiency of the productive system and thereby maximize the total income available for distribution. This argument is countered at two levels. Marxist critics contend that labourers in a capitalist economy are systematically paid less than the value of their work by virtue of the superior bargaining power of employers, so that the claim of efficiency masks an underlying condition of exploitation. Other critics question the criterion of efficiency itself, which counts every dollar of input and output but pays no heed to the moral or social or aesthetic qualities of either and which excludes workers from expressing their own preferences as to the most appropriate decisions for their firms.
CORRECTIVE MEASURES

Various measures have been taken by capitalist societies to meet these criticisms, although it must be recognized that a deep disagreement divides economists with respect to the accuracy of the criticisms, let alone the appropriate corrective measures to be adopted if these criticisms are valid. A substantial body of economists believe that many of the difficulties of the system spring not from its own workings but from well-meaning attempts to block or channel them. Thus, with respect to the problem of instability, supporters of the market system believe that capitalism, left alone as much as possible, will naturally corroborate the trend of economic expansion that has marked its history. They also expect that whatever instabilities appear tend quickly to correct themselves, provided that government plays a generally passive role. Market-oriented economists do not deny that the system can give rise to qualitative or distributional ills, but they tend to believe that these are more than compensated for by its general expansive properties. Where specific problems remain, such as damage to the environment or serious poverty, the prescription often seeks to utilize the market system itself as the corrective agency—e.g., alleviating poverty through negative income taxes rather than with welfare payments or controlling pollution by charging fees on the outflow of wastes rather than by banning the discharge of pollutants.

Opposing this view is a much more interventionist approach rooted in generally Keynesian and welfare-oriented policies. This view doubts the intrinsic momentum or reliability of capitalist growth and is therefore prepared to use active government means, both fiscal and monetary, to combat recession. It is also more skeptical of the likelihood of improving the quality or the equity of society by market means and, although not opposing these, looks more favourably on direct regulatory intervention and on specific programs of assistance to disprivileged groups.

Despite this philosophical division of opinion, a fair degree of practical consensus was reached on a number of issues in the 1950s and ’60s. Although there are differences in policy style and determination from one nation to the next, all capitalist governments have taken measures to overcome recession—whether by lowering taxes, by borrowing and spending, or by easing interest rates—and all pursue the opposite kinds of policies in inflationary times. It cannot be said that these policies have been unqualified successes, either in bringing about vigorous or steady growth or in ridding the system of its inflationary tendencies. Yet, imperfect though they are, these measures seem to have been sufficient to prevent the development of socially destructive depressions on the order of the Great Depression of the 1930s. It is not the eradication but the limitation of instability that has been a signal achievement of all advanced capitalist countries since World War II. It should be noted, however, that these remedial measures have little or no international application. Although theWorld Bank and the International Monetary Fund make efforts on behalf of developing countries, no institution exists to control credit for the world (as do the central banks that control it for individual nations); no global spending or taxing authority can speed up, or hold back, the pace of production for industrial regions as a whole; no agency effectively oversees the availability of credit for the developing nations or the feasibility of the terms on which it may be extended. Thus, some critics of globalization contend that the internationalization of capitalism may exert destabilizing influences for which no policy corrective as yet exists.

A broadly similar appraisal can be made with respect to the redress of specific threats that emerge as unintended consequences of the market system. The issue is largely one of scale. Specific problems can often be redressed by market incentives to alter behaviour (paying a fee for returning used bottles) or, when the effect is more serious, by outright prohibition (bans on child labour or on dangerous chemical fertilizers). The problem becomes less amenable to control, however, when the market generates unintended consequences of large proportions, such as traffic congestion in cities. The difficulty here is that the correction of such externalities requires the support and cooperation of the public and thereby crosses the line from the economic into the political arena, often making redress more difficult to obtain. On a still larger scale, the remedy for some problems may require international agreements, and these often raise conflicts of interest between the nation generating the ill effects as a by-product of its own production and those suffering from the effects. The problem of acid rain originating in one country but falling in another is a case in point. Again the economic problem becomes political and its control more complicated.

A number of remedies have been applied to the distributional problems of capitalism. No advanced capitalist country today allows the market to distribute income without supplementing or altering the resulting pattern of rewards through taxes, subsidies, welfare systems, or entitlement payments such as old-age pensions and health benefits. In the United States, these transfer payments, as they are called, amount to some 10 percent of total consumer income; in a number of European nations, they come to considerably more. The result has been to lessen considerably the incidence of officially measured poverty.

Yet these examples of successful corrective action by governments do not go unchallenged by economists who are concerned that some of the “cures” applied to social problems may be worse than the “disease.” While admitting that the market system fails to live up to its ideal, these economists argue that government correctives and collective decision making must be subjected to the same critical scrutiny leveled against the market system. Markets may fail, in other words, but so might governments. The stagflation of the 1970s, the fiscal crises of some democratic states in the 1980s, and the double-digit unemployment in western Europe in the 1990s set the stage for the 21st century by raising serious doubts about the ability of government correctives to solve market problems.
Centrally planned systems

No survey of comparative economic systems would be complete without an account of centrally planned systems, the modern descendants of the command economies of the imperial past. In sharpest possible contrast to those earlier tributary arrangements, however, modern command societies have virtually all been organized in the name of socialism—that is, with the function of command officially administered on behalf of an ideology purported to serve the broad masses of the population.

Socialist central planning needs to be differentiated from the idea of socialism itself. The latter draws on moral precepts of concern for the needy that can be discovered in the Judeo-Christian tradition and derives its general social orientation from Gerrard Winstanley’s Diggers movement during the English Civil Wars in the mid-17th century: “The Earth,” Winstanley wrote, “was made by Almighty God to be a Common Treasury of livelihood to the whole of mankind…without respect of persons.”

Socialism as a means of orchestrating a modern industrial system did not receive explicit attention until the Russian Revolution in 1917. In his pamphlet The State and Revolution, written before he came to power,Vladimir Lenin envisaged the task of coordinating a socialist economy as little more than delivering production to central collecting points from which it would be distributed according to need—an operation requiring no more than “the extraordinarily simple operations of watching, recording, and issuing receipts, within the reach of anybody who can read and who knows the first four rules of arithmetic.” After the revolution it soon became apparent that the problem was a great deal more difficult than that. The mobilization of human capital required the complex determination of appropriate amounts and levels of pay, and the transportation of foodstuffs from the countryside posed the awkward question of the degree to which the “bourgeois” peasantry would have to be accommodated. As civil war raged in the country, these problems intensified until production fell to a catastrophic 14 percent of prewar levels. By the end of 1920, the economic system of the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse.

To forestall disaster, Lenin instituted the New Economic Policy (NEP), which amounted to a partial restoration of capitalism, especially in retail trade, small-scale production, and agriculture. Only the “commanding heights” of the economy remained in government hands. The NEP resuscitated the economy but opened a period of intense debate as to the use of market incentives versus moral suasion or more coercive techniques. The debate, which remained unresolved during Lenin’s life, persisted after his death in 1924 during the subsequent struggle for power between Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, and Nikolay Bukharin. Stalin’s rise to power brought a rapid collectivization of the economy. The NEP was abandoned. Private agriculture was converted into collective farming with great cruelty and loss of life; all capitalist markets and private enterprises were quickly and ruthlessly eliminated; and the direction of economic life was consigned to a bureaucracy of ministries and planning agencies. By the 1930s a structure of centralized planning had been put into place that was to coordinate the Russian economy for the next half century.
Soviet planning

At the centre of the official planning system was the Gosplan (gos means “committee”), the top economic planning agency of the Soviet state. Above the Gosplan were the political arms of the Soviet government, while below it were smaller planning agencies for the various Soviet republics. The Gosplan itself was staffed by economists and statisticians charged with drawing up what amounted to a blueprint for national economic activity. This blueprint, usually based on a five- to seven-year period, translated the major objectives determined by political decision (electrification targets, agricultural goals, transportation networks, and the like) into industry-specific requirements (outputs of generators, fertilizers, steel rails). These general requirements were then referred to ministries charged with the management of the industries in question, where the targets were further broken down into specific outputs (quantities, qualities, shapes, and sizes of steel plates, girders, rods, wires, and so forth) and where lower-level goals were fixed, such as budgets for firms, wage rates for different skill levels, or managerial bonuses.

Planning was not, therefore, entirely a one-way process. General objectives were indeed transmitted from the top down, but, as each ministry and factory inspected its obligations, specific obstacles and difficulties were transmitted from the bottom up. The final plan was thus a compromise between the political objectives of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the nuts-and-bolts considerations of the echelons charged with its execution. This coordinative mechanism worked reasonably well when the larger objectives of the system called for the kind of crash planning often seen in a war economy. The Soviet economy achieved unprecedented rapid progress in its industrialization drive before World War II and in repairing the devastation that followed the war. Moreover, in areas where the political stakes were high, such as space technology, the planning system was able to concentrate skills and resources regardless of cost, which enabled the Soviet Union on more than one occasion to outperform similar undertakings in the West. Yet, charged with the orchestration of a civilian economy in normal peacetime conditions, the system of centralized planning failed seriously.

Because of its failures, a far-reaching reorganization of the system was set into motion in 1985 by Mikhail Gorbachev, under the banner of perestroika (“restructuring”). The extent of the restructuring can be judged by these proposed changes in the coordinative system: (1) the scope and penetration of central planning were to be greatly curtailed and directed instead toward general economic goals, such as rates of growth, consumption or investment targets, or regional development; (2) planning done for factory enterprises was to be taken up by factories themselves, and decisions were to be guided by considerations of profit and loss; (3) factory managers were no longer to be bound by instructions regarding which suppliers to use or where to distribute their products but were to be free to buy from and to sell to whomever they pleased; (4) managers were also to be free to hire and—more important—to fire workers who had been difficult to discharge; and (5) many kinds of small private enterprises were to be encouraged, especially in farming and the retail trades.

This program represented a dramatic retreat from the original idea of central planning. One cannot say, however, that it also represented a decisive turn from socialism to capitalism, for it was not clear to what extent the restructured planning system might embody other essential features of capitalism, such as private ownership of the means of production and the exclusion of political power from the normal operations of economic life. Nor was it known to what extent economic perestroika was to be accompanied by its political counterpart, glasnost (“openness”). Thus, the degree of change in both the economic structure and the underlying political order remained indeterminate.

The record of perestroika over the rest of the 1980s was disappointing. After an initial flush of enthusiasm, the task of abandoning the centralized planning system proved to be far more difficult than anticipated, in part because the magnitude of such a change would have necessitated the creation of a new structure of economic (managerial) power, independent of, and to some extent in continuous tension with, that of political power, much as under capitalism. Also, the operation of the centralized planning system, freed from some of the coercive pressures of the past but not yet infused with the energies of the market, rapidly deteriorated. Despite bumper crops, for example, it was impossible to move potatoes from the fields to retail outlets, so that rations decreased and rumours of acute food shortages raced through Moscow. By the end of the 1980s, the Soviet system was facing an economic breakdown more severe and far-reaching than the worst capitalist crisis of the 1930s. Not surprisingly, the unrest aroused ancient nationalist rivalries and ambitions, threatening the dismemberment of the Soviet economic and political empire.

As the Soviet central government gradually lost control over the economy at the republic and local levels, the system of central planning eroded without adequate free-market mechanisms to replace it. By 1990 the Soviet economy had slid into near paralysis, and this condition foreshadowed the fall from power of the Soviet Communist Party and the breakup of the Soviet Union itself into a group of independent republics in 1991.

Attempts to transform socialist systems into market economies began in eastern and central Europe in 1989 and in the former Soviet Union in 1992. Ambitious privatization programs were pursued in Poland, Hungary, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Russia. In many countries this economic transformation was joined by a transition (although with varying degrees of success) to democratic forms of governance.
Mixed economies

The socialist turn from planning toward the market provides a fitting initial conclusion to this overview of the typology of economic systems, for it is apparent that the three ideal types—of tradition, command, and market—have never been attained in wholly pure form. Perhaps the most undiluted of these modes in practice has been that of tradition, the great means of orchestration in prestate economic life. But even in tradition a form of command can be seen in the expected obedience of community members to the sanctions of tradition. In the great command systems of the past, as has been seen, tradition supplied important stabilizing functions, and traces of market exchange served to connect these systems to others beyond their borders. The market system as well has never existed in wholly pure form. Market societies have always taken for granted that tradition would provide the foundation of trustworthiness and honesty without which a market-knit society would require an impossible degree of supervision, and no capitalist society has ever existed without a core of public economic undertakings, of which Adam Smith’s triad—defense, law and order, and nonprofitable public works—constitutes the irreducible minimum.

Thus, it is not surprising that the Soviet Union’s efforts to find a more flexible amalgam of planning and market were anticipated by several decades of cautious experiment in some of the socialist countries of eastern Europe, especially Yugoslavia and Hungary, and by bold departures from central planning in China after 1979. All these economies existed in some degree of flux as their governments sought configurations best suited to their institutional legacies, political ideologies, and cultural traditions. All of them also encountered problems similar in kind, although not in degree, to those of the Soviet Union as they sought to escape the confines of highly centralized economic control. After the Soviet Union abandoned its control over eastern Europe in 1989–90, most of that region’s countries began converting their economies into capitalist-like systems.

Something of this mixed system of coordination can also be seen in the less-developed regions of the world. The panorama of these economies represents a panoply of economic systems, with tradition-dominated tribal societies, absolute monarchies, and semifeudal societies side by side with military socialisms and sophisticated but unevenly developed capitalisms. To some extent, this spectrum reflects the legacy of 19th-century imperialist capitalism, against whose cultural as well as economic hegemony all latecomers have had to struggle. Little can be ventured as to the outcome of this astonishing variety of economic structures. A few may follow the corporatist model of the Asian tigers and the economies of the Pacific Rim (a group of Pacific Ocean countries and islands that constitute more than half of the world’s population); others may emulate the social democratic welfare states of western Europe; a few will pursue a more laissez-faire approach; yet others will seek whatever method—either market or planned—that might help them establish a viable place in the international arena. Unfortunately, many are likely to remain destitute for some time. In this fateful drama, considerations of culture and politics are likely to play a more determinative role than any choice of economic instrumentalities.
Problems with socialism

The socialist experiments of the 20th century were motivated by a genuine interest in improving life for the masses, but the results instead delivered untold suffering in terms of economic depravation and political tyranny. Nonetheless, the egalitarian values that inspired the socialist experiments continue to possess great intellectual and moral appeal. And while socialism has proved less attractive than democratic capitalism, many of the most normatively attractive elements of socialism have been incorporated into democratic systems, as evidenced by public support for spending on social programs.

The chief economic problem of socialism has been the efficient performance of the very task for which its planning apparatus exists—namely, the effective coordination of production and distribution. Modern critics have declared that a planned economy is impossible—i.e., will inevitably become unmanageably chaotic—by virtue of the need for a planning agency to make the millions of dovetailing decisions necessary to produce the gigantic catalog of goods and services of a modern society. Moreover, classical economists would criticize the perverse incentives caused by the absence of private property rights. Precisely such problems became manifest in the late 1980s in the Soviet Union.

The proposed remedy to the problems of socialism involves the use of market arrangements under which managers are free to conduct the affairs of their enterprises according to the dictates of supply and demand(rather than those of a central authority). The difficulty with this solution lies in its political rather than economic requirements, because the acceptance of a market system entrusted with the coordination of the bulk of economic activity requires the tolerance of a sphere of private authority apart from that of public authority. A market mechanism may be compatible with a society of socialist principles, but it requires that the forms of socialist societies as they now exist be radically reorganized. The political difficulties of such a reorganization are twofold. One difficulty arises from the tensions that can be expected to exist between the private interests, and no doubt the public visions, of the managerial echelons and those of the political regime. The creation of a market is tantamount to the creation of a realm within society into which the political arm of government is not allowed to reach fully.

Another political difficulty encountered in the move from socialism to the market is the impact on the working class. The establishment of a market system as the major coordinator of economic activity, including labour services, necessarily introduces the use of unemployment as a disciplining force into a social order. Under socialist planning, government commands were used to allocate employment and thereby did not permit the hiring or firing of workers for strictly economic reasons. The problem with this was inefficient production, underemployment, and misallocations of labour. The introduction of a market mechanism for labour is, however, likely to exacerbate class tensions between workers and management. Some socialist reformers tried to overcome these tensions by increasing worker participation in the management of the enterprises in which they worked, but no great successes have been reported. Finally, socialist governments will tend to encounter problems when they come to rely on market coordinative mechanisms, because economic decentralization and political centralization have inherent incompatibilities.

Assessment

Economic systems may lose some of the decisive differences that have marked them in the past and come to suggest, instead, a continuum on which elements of both market and planning coexist in different proportions. Societies along such a continuum may continue to designate themselves as either capitalist or socialist, but they are likely to reveal as many similarities as differences in their solutions to economic problems.

source: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/178493/economic-systems/

Economic Growth

noreply@blogger.com (sourceSite) — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 07:26:00 +0000

Economic Growth, the process by which a nation’s wealth increases over time. Although the term is often used in discussions of short-term economic performance, in the context of economic theory it generally refers to an increase in wealth over an extended period.

Growth can best be described as a process of transformation. Whether one examines an economy that is already modern and industrialized or an economy at an earlier stage of development, one finds that the process of growth is uneven and unbalanced. Economic historians have attempted to develop a theory of stages through which each economy must pass as it grows. Early writers, given to metaphor, often stressed the resemblance between the evolutionary character of economic development and human life—e.g., growth, maturity, and decadence. Later writers, such as the Australian economist Colin Clark, have stressed the dominance of different sectors of an economy at different stages of its development and modernization. For Clark, development is a process of successive domination by primary (agriculture), secondary (manufacturing), and tertiary (trade and service) production. For the American economist W.W. Rostow, growth proceeds from a traditional society to a transitional one (in which the foundations for growth are developed), to the “take-off” society (in which development accelerates), to the mature society. Various theories have been advanced to explain the movement from one stage to the next. Entrepreneurship and investment are the two factors most often singled out as critical.

Economic growth is usually distinguished from economic development, the latter term being restricted to economies that are close to the subsistence level. The term economic growth is applied to economies already experiencing rising per capita incomes. In Rostow’s phraseology economic growth begins somewhere between the stage of take-off and the stage of maturity; or in Clark’s terms, between the stage dominated by primary and the stage dominated by secondary production. The most striking aspect in such development is generally the enormous decrease in the proportion of the labour force employed in agriculture. There are other aspects of growth. The decline in agriculture and the rise of industry and services has led to concentration of the population in cities, first in what has come to be described as the “core city” and later in the suburbs. In earlier years public utility investment (including investment in transportation) was more important than manufacturing investment, but in the course of growth this relationship was reversed. There has also been a rise in the importance of durable consumer goods in total output. In the U.S. experience, the rate of growth of capital goods production at first exceeded the rate of growth of total output, but later this too was reversed. Likewise, business construction or plant expenditures loomed large in the earlier period as an object of business investment compared to the recent era. Whether other countries will go through the same experience at similar stages in their growth remains to be seen.

Comparative growth rates for a group of developed countries show how uneven the process of growth can be. Partly this unevenness reflects the extraordinary nature of the 1913–50 period, which included two major wars and a severe and prolonged depression. There are sizable differences, however, in the growth rates of the various countries as between the 1870–1913 and 1950–73 periods and the period since 1973. For the most part, these differences indicate an acceleration in rates of growth from the first to the second period and a marked slowdown in growth rates from the second to the current period. Many writers have attributed this to the more rapid growth of business investment during the middle of the three periods.

The relatively high rates of growth for West Germany, Japan, and Italy in the post-World War II period have stimulated a good deal of discussion. It is often argued that “late starters” can grow faster because they can borrow advanced technology from the early starters. In this way they leapfrog some of the stages of development that the early starters were forced to move through. This argument is nothing more than the assertion that late starters will grow rapidly during the period when they are modernizing. Italy did not succeed in growing rapidly and thereby modernizing until after World War II. Together with Japan and Germany it also experienced a large amount of war damage. This has an effect similar to starting late, since recovery from war entails building a stock of capital that will, other things being equal, embody the most advanced technology and therefore be more productive and allow faster growth. The other part of this argument is the assertion that early starters are actually deterred from introducing on a broad front the new technology they themselves have developed. For example, firms in a country that industrialized early may be inhibited from introducing a more modern and efficient means of transportation on a broad scale because there is no guarantee that other firms handling the ancillary loading and unloading tasks will also modernize to make the change profitable.

Related to this is the problem of whether or not per capita income levels and their rates of growth in developed economies will eventually converge or diverge. For example, as per capita incomes of fast growers like the Italians and Japanese approach those of economies that developed earlier, such as the American and British, will the growth rates of the former slow down? Economists who answer in the affirmative stress the similarities in the changing patterns of demand as per capita income rises. This emphasis in turn implies that there is less and less chance to borrow technology from the industrial leaders as the income levels of the late starters approach those of the more affluent. Moreover, rising per capita incomes in an affluent society usually are accompanied by a shift in demand toward services. Therefore, so this argument goes, differences in income levels and growth rates between countries should eventually narrow because of the low growth in productivity in the service sector. The evidence is inconclusive. On the one hand, growth is a function of something more than the ability to borrow the latest technology; on the other hand, it is not clear that productivity must always grow at a slower rate in the service industries.

A rapidly increasing population is not clearly either an advantage or a disadvantage to economic growth. The American Simon Kuznets and other investigators have found little association between rates of population growth and rates of growth of GNP per capita. Some of the fastest growing economies have been those with stable populations. And in the United States, where the rate of growth of population has shown a downward historical trend, the rate of growth of GNP per capita has increased over the last century and a half. Another finding by Kuznets is that while GNP per capita in 1960 was substantially higher in the United States than in any European country, there was no significant difference in the per capita growth rates of all these countries over the period 1840 to 1960 as a whole. The conclusion is that the United States started from a higher per capita base; this may have been the result of its superior natural resources, especially its fertile agricultural land.

The analysis of growth
To explain why some countries grow more rapidly than others or why a country may grow more rapidly during one period of history than another, economists have found it convenient to think in terms of a “production function.” This is a mathematical way of relating some measure of output, such as GNP, to the inputs required to produce it. For example, it is possible to relate GNP to the size of the labour force measured in man-hours, to capital stock measured in dollars, and to various other inputs that are considered important. An equation can be written that states that the rate of growth of GNP depends upon the rates of growth of the labour force, the capital stock, and other variables. A common procedure is to assume that the influence of the separate inputs is additive—i.e., that the increase in the growth of output caused by increasing the rate of growth of, say, capital is independent of the rate of growth of the labour force. This is the starting point of a great deal of current empirical work that attempts to quantify the importance of different inputs.

Under certain assumptions, some reasonable and some patently false, it is possible to conclude that what labour and capital receive in the form of wages, profits, and interest is a fair measure of what they contribute to the productive process. Thus in the United States in the period following World War II the share of output going to labour was approximately 79 percent, while the share of output distributed as “profits” was 21 percent. If we assume that these proportions determine how much we should weight the rate of growth of the labour force and of capital respectively in determining their contribution to the rate of growth of output, we must conclude that the relative contribution of capital is slight. Alternatively, we may say that some given percentage increase in the rate of growth of the labour force will have a much larger influence on the rate of growth of output than the same percentage increase in the rate of growth of capital. This is a puzzling result and can be traced to the assumption that the influence of separate inputs is additive.
Quality improvements in the inputs

Much work has been done in an effort to measure the inputs in the productive process more accurately by taking account of improvements in the quality of both labour and capital over time. For example, it has been argued that the amount of a worker’s time spent on his formal education is positively related to the income he receives and to his productive contribution. Measuring the number of man-hours worked from one period to the next will not give a true picture of the increase in labour input if the average amount of education received by workers is changing. Man-hour units must be converted to “efficiency” units. Thus if a labour force of 100 workers in the first year all had an eighth-grade education, while 20 years later each member had a 10th-grade education, then measured in efficiency units the labour force had grown. If the length of time spent on formal education increases over time, then the growth of the labour input will be larger if measured in efficiency units. There is, thus, an element of capital in the labour force.

Examples of investment in human capital are expenditures on health and on all types of education, including on-the-job training. Expenditures of this sort increase the quality of the labour force and its ability to perform productive tasks. Many economists have argued that technological progress is really nothing but quality improvements in human beings. Some economists take an even broader view and speak of the “production of knowledge” as the clue to technological progress. The production of knowledge is a broad category including outlays on all forms of education, on basic research, and on the more applied type of research associated especially with industry. It is argued that fast-growing industries tend to be those having a high research and development component in their total costs. In addition, firms within an industry that have large research and development budgets tend to experience the most rapid technological progress. The argument is that technical change and improvements must originate in inventions that lead to innovations in the products produced or in the processes whereby existing products are manufactured.

A similar argument applies to the size of the capital stock. It can be maintained that design improvements increase the efficiency of capital goods so that a dollar’s worth of machinery purchased today may be much more efficient than a dollar’s worth of depreciated machinery purchased yesterday. The rate of growth of the capital stock measured so as to take account of quality improvements will be greater than the rate of growth of the capital stock measured in a way that neglects the differences between “vintages.”

Some economists have stressed “economies of scale.” For example, if an increase in the use of capital and labour leads to a greater than proportionate increase in output, this is said to result from economies of scale. Economies of scale may arise because an expansion of the market justifies a radical change in productive techniques. These new techniques may be so much more efficient that the returns in the way of increased output are much greater proportionately than the increase in inputs.

Another source of growth and of technical progress in particular has been seen in shifts of demand from low productivity sectors to high productivity sectors, thus causing resources to be reallocated. The most notable movement has been the shift of resources, especially labour, out of agriculture—a traditionally low-productivity sector. Such shifts act to increase the rate of growth of output in ways that cannot be accounted for by simply measuring growth in total inputs. Historically, the allocation of both capital and labour have shifted during the growth process from low productivity sectors to high ones, causing the rate of growth of output to exceed the weighted average of the rates of growth of total inputs.

Entrepreneurship
This historical fact points to an element that has received little attention so far: the influence of entrepreneurship. If the allocation of resources changes during the course of growth and development, it does so under the leadership of an entrepreneurial class. The quality of entrepreneurship is seen by many economists as an important explanation of differences in the rate of technical progress between countries. Decisions must be made somewhere along the line as to whether a new product or process will be introduced. It has been argued that two countries undertaking similar amounts of investment leading to more or less identical rates of growth in the capital stock will not necessarily show the same rate of technical progress. In one country entrepreneurs may be undertaking enterprise investment that has as its aim the introduction of the most advanced types of production techniques, those that will lead to a rapid growth of labour productivity. In the other, because of hesitation or ignorance, the investment program may lead only to marginal changes in productive processes; the resulting growth in labour productivity and GNP will be small. For example, much has been said since World War II about the more aggressive nature of German businessmen as compared to their English counterparts. The emphasis on the role of the entrepreneur in economic growth stems from the theoretical work of the economist Joseph A. Schumpeter, but many others have echoed it.

The Economy of Gifts

noreply@blogger.com (sourceSite) — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 09:33:00 +0000

Thanissaro Bhikkhu

For a monastic the bowl also represents the opportunity you give others to practice the Dhamma in accordance with their means. In Thailand, this is reflected in one of the idioms used to describe going for alms: proad sat, doing a favor for living beings. There were times on my alms round in rural Thailand when, as I walked past a tiny grass shack, someone would come running out to put rice in my bowl. Years earlier, as lay person, my reaction on seeing such a bare, tiny shack would have been to want to give monetary help to them. But now I was on the receiving end of their generosity. In my new position I may have been doing less for them in material terms than I could have done as a lay person, but at least I was giving them the opportunity to have the dignity that comes with being a donor.
For the donors, the monk's alms bowl becomes a symbol of the good they have done. On several occasions in Thailand people would tell me that they had dreamed of a monk standing before them, opening the lid to his bowl. The details would differ as to what the dreamer saw in the bowl, but in each case the interpretation of the dream was the same: the dreamer's merit was about to bear fruit in an especially positive way.
The alms round itself is also a gift that goes both ways. On the one hand, daily contact with lay donors reminds the monastics that their practice is not just an individual matter, but a concern of the entire community. They are indebted to others for the right and opportunity to practice, and should do their best to practice diligently as a way of repaying that debt. At the same time, the opportunity to walk through a village early in the morning, passing by the houses of the rich and poor, the happy and unhappy, gives plenty of opportunities to reflect on the human condition and the need to find a way out of the grinding cycle of death and rebirth.
For the donors, the alms round is a reminder that the monetary economy is not the only way to happiness. It helps to keep a society sane when there are monastics infiltrating the towns every morning, embodying an ethos very different from the dominant monetary economy. The gently subversive quality of this custom helps people to keep their values straight.
Above all, the economy of gifts symbolized by the alms bowl and the alms round allows for specialization, a division of labor, from which both sides benefit. Those who are willing can give up many of the privileges of home life and in return receive the free time, the basic support, and the communal training needed to devote themselves fully to Dhamma practice. Those who stay at home can benefit from having full-time Dhamma practitioners around on a daily basis. I have always found it ironic that the modern world honors specialization in almost every area -- even in things like running, jumping, and throwing a ball -- but not in the Dhamma, where it is denounced as "dualism," "elitism," or worse. The Buddha began the monastic order on the first day of his teaching career because he saw the benefits that come with specialization. Without it, the practice tends to become limited and diluted, negotiated into the demands of the monetary economy. The Dhamma becomes limited to what will sell and what will fit into a schedule dictated by the demands of family and job. In this sort of situation, everyone ends up poorer in things of the heart.
The fact that tangible goods run only one way in the economy of gifts means that the exchange is open to all sorts of abuses. This is why there are so many rules in the monastic code to keep the monastics from taking unfair advantage of the generosity of lay donors. There are rules against asking for donations in inappropriate circumstances, from making claims as to one's spiritual attainments, and even from covering up the good foods in one's bowl with rice, in hopes that donors will then feel inclined to provide something more substantial. Most of the rules, in fact, were instituted at the request of lay supporters or in response to their complaints. They had made their investment in the merit economy and were interested in protecting their investment. This observation applies not only to ancient India, but also to the modern-day West. On their first contact with the Sangha, most people tend to see little reason for the disciplinary rules, and regard them as quaint holdovers from ancient Indian prejudices. When, however, they come to see the rules in the context of the economy of gifts and begin to participate in that economy themselves, they also tend to become avid advocates of the rules and active protectors of "their" monastics. The arrangement may limit the freedom of the monastics in certain ways, but it means that the lay supporters take an active interest not only in what the monastic teaches, but also in how the monastic lives -- a useful safeguard to make sure that teachers walk their talk. This, again, insures that the practice remains a communal concern. As the Buddha said,

Monks, householders are very helpful to you, as they provide you with the requisites of robes, almsfood, lodgings, and medicine. And you, monks, are very helpful to householders, as you teach them the Dhamma admirable in the beginning, admirable in the middle, and admirable in the end, as you expound the holy life both in its particulars and in its essence, entirely complete, surpassingly pure. In this way the holy life is lived in mutual dependence, for the purpose of crossing over the flood, for making a right end to suffering and stress.

-- Iti 107

Periodically, throughout the history of Buddhism, the economy of gifts has broken down, usually when one side or the other gets fixated on the tangible side of the exchange and forgets the qualities of the heart that are its reason for being. And periodically it has been revived when people are sensitive to its rewards in terms of the living Dhamma. By its very nature, the economy of gifts is something of a hothouse creation that requires careful nurture and a sensitive discernment of its benefits. I find it amazing that such an economy has lasted for more than 2,600 years. It will never be more than an alternative to the dominant monetary economy, largely because its rewards are so intangible and require so much patience, trust, and discipline in order to be appreciated. Those who demand immediate return for specific services and goods will always require a monetary system. Sincere Buddhist lay people, however, have the chance to play an amphibious role, engaging in the monetary economy in order to maintain their livelihood, and contributing to the economy of gifts whenever they feel so inclined. In this way they can maintain direct contact with teachers, insuring the best possible instruction for their own practice, in an atmosphere where mutual compassion and concern are the medium of exchange; and purity of heart, the bottom line.

http://ebooks.gutenberg.us/WorldeBookLibrary.com/lib/modern/thanissaro/economy.html

Price Earning Ratio (PER)

noreply@blogger.com (sourceSite) — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 04:00:00 +0000

Ini adalah ratio yang digunakan untuk menghitung tingkat pengembalian modal yang diinvestasikan pada suatu saham. Atau, menghitung kemampuan suatu saham dalam menghasilkan laba.
Cara menghitung PER:
Market value dibagi dengan EPS

Tujuan dari metode analisis ini adalah untuk memprediksi kapan atau berapa kali laba yang dihasilkan perusahaan dibandingkan dengan harga sahamnya pada periode tertentu. Metode ini bisa juga dipakai untuk memperkirakan jangka waktu pengembalian modal investasi yang telah/ akan ditanamkan pada suatu saham.

Semakin kecil PER suatu saham akan semakin baik. Logikanya tingkat pengembalian investasi di saham tersebut akan semakin cepat karena EPS yang dihasilkan semakin besar.

Jika hanya dipakai untuk menghitung tingkat pengembalian modal, metode ini memiliki kelemahan karena tidak memperhitungkan persentase dividen yang akan dibagikan perusahaan. Padahal bisa saja persentase dividen yang dibagikan sangat kecil atau bahkan tidak dibagikan. Maka, penggunaan metode ini untuk mengukur tingkat pengembalian modal menjadi tidak tepat.

Tapi, jika digunakan untuk mengukur efektivitas kinerja suatu perusahaan, perhitungan PER ini cukup baik. Ini disebabkan semakin cepat/kecil PER-nya berarti semakin efisien dan efektif kinerja perusahaan tersebut. Dengan kata lain, pemanfaatan aset perusahaan untuk memperoleh laba semakin maksimal.

Metode ini merupakan salah satu metode yang populer dipakai para investor besar. Jadi, tidak ada salahnya investor kecil juga menganalisis ratio ini sebagai salah satu dasar pertimbangan untuk berinvestasi.

Metode Analisis Du-Pont

noreply@blogger.com (sourceSite) — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 04:46:00 +0000

Du-pont telah dikenal sebagai pengusaha sukses. Dalam bisnisnya, ia memiliki cara sendiri dalam menganalisis laporan keuangannya. Menurut Sofyan Safri Harahap dalam buku “Analisis Kritis Atas Laporan Keuangan” (20046333) “Caranya sebenarnya hampir sama dengan analisis laporan keuangan biasa, namun pendekatannya lebih integratif dan menggunakan komposisi laporan keuangan sebagai elemen analisisnya. Ia mengurai hubungan pos-pos laporan keuangan sampai mendetail sebagai berikut.”

Dari bagan diatas, maka diperoleh elemen-elemen penyusun dari analisis Du-Pont ini yang akan dijelaskan satu per satu sebagai berikut:
1. Return of Equity (ROE)

Berfungsi untuk melihat efektifitas penggunaan modal sendiri terhadap laba atau keuntungan bersih perusahaan setelah pajak, dimana setiap rupiah modal yang ditanamkan dapat menghasilkan keuntungan yang diharapkan.

2. Return of Investment (ROI)

Penentuan ROI berfungsi untuk mengatur efektifitas penggunaan asset terhadap laba bersih. Hal ini mengidentifikasi seberapa besar harta total dimanfaatkan atau digunakan untuk mendapatkan keuntungan.

3. Equity Multiplier
Nilai equity multiplier ini menunjukkan kemampuan equity atau modal sendiri menciptakan total asset.

4. Persentase Laba Bersih
Perbandingan ini menunjukkan seberapa besar total penjualan yang dilakukan merupakan laba bersih yang dapat diperoleh oleh perusahaan.

5. Total Asset Turnover
Rasio ini menunjukkan perputaran total aktiva diukur dari volume penjualan dengan kata lain seberapa jauh kemampuan semua aktiva menciptakan penjualan. Semakin tinggi rasio ini semakin baik.

6. Laba Setelah Pajak
Laba setelah pajak adalah laba yang diperoleh oleh perusahaan setelah dikurangi dengan pajak.

7. Penjualan
Merupakan arus masuk atau peningkatan nilai aset dari suatu equity atau penyelesaian kewajiban dari equity atau gabungan keduanya selama periode tertentu yang berasal dari penyerahan/produksi barang, pemberian jasa atas pelaksana kegiatan lainnya yang merupakan kegiatan utama perusahaan yang sedang berjalan.

8. Total Biaya
Total biaya merupakan arus keluar aktiva, penggunaan aktiva, atau munculnya kewajiban atau kombinasi keduanya selama suatu periode yang disebabkan oleh pengiriman barang, pembebanan jasa, atau pelaksanaan kegiatan lainnya yang merupakan kegiatan utama perusahaan.

9. Total Aset
Total aset adalah total harta yang dimiliki oleh perusahaan yang berperan dalam operasi perusahaan misalnya kas, persediaan, aktiva tetap, aktiva yang tak berwujud, dan lain lain.

10. Aktiva Lancar
Aktiva lancar disini meliputi kas, piutang dagang, efek, persediaan, dan aktiva lancar lainnya.

11. Nilai Buku Aktiva Lancar
Nilai buku aktiva tetap yaitu harga buku yang diperoleh dari nilai perolehan historis dikurangi akumulasi penyusutan yang telah dibebankan kepada pendapatan.

12. Equity
Equity (modal pemilik) adalah suatu hak yang tersisa atas aktiva suatu lembaga (equity) setelah siketahui kewajibannya.

13. Total Liabilities
Total liabilities (kewajiban/utang) merupakan kewajiban ekonomis dari suatu perusahaan yang diakui dan dinilai sesuai prinsip akuntansi. Kewajiban disini termasuk juga saldo kredit yang ditunda yang bukan merupakan utang atau kewajiban.

KONSEP NILAI WAKTU UANG (TIME VALUE OF MONEY)

noreply@blogger.com (sourceSite) — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 04:44:00 +0000

Konsep ini adalah konsep yang memperhatikan waktu dalam menghitung nilai uang. Artinya uang yang dimiliki seseorang pada hari ini tidak akan sama nilainya dengan satu tahun yang akan datang. Konsep Time of Valur ini sangat berkaitan dengan CAPITAL BUDGETING.
Nilai yang akan datang
Future value (terminal value) adalah nilai uang yang akan datang dari satu jumlah uang atau suatu seri pembayaran pada waktu sekarang, yg dievaluasi dengan suatu tingkat bunga tertentu.  
• FV = P0+ SI= P0+ P0(i)(n)  
Nilai Sekarang (Present Value)
Nilai sekarang dari jumlah yang diperoleh di masa mendatang atau sering pula disebut dengan present value adalah nilai sejumlah uang yang saat ini dapat dibungakan untuk memperoleh jumlah yang lebih besar di masa mendatang. Misalkan P adalah nilai sekarang dari uang sebanyak A pada t tahun yang akan datang. Bila kemudian diumpamakan tingkat bunga adalah r, maka bunga yang dapat diperoleh dari P rupiah adalah :
I = P.r.t
dan uang setelah t tahun menjadi :
P + P.r.t = P(1+rt)
Karena A adalah nilai uang sebanyak P pada t tahun mendaang, maka
P(1+rt) = A
atau
P = A/I + rt
Contoh :
Setahun lagi rudi akan menerima uang sebanyak Rp. 10.000,-. Berapakah nilai sekarang uang tersebut jika tingkat bunga adalah 13 % setahun?
Dalam masalh ini, A = 10.000,-. r = 0,13 dan t = 1
P = 10.000/ 1 + (0,13)(1)
= 8849,56
Menghitung nilai pada waktu sekarang jumlah uang yang baru akan dimiliki beberapa waktu kemudian
PV = FV / (1+i)n
Istilah yang digunakan :
Pv = Present Value (Nilai Sekarang)
Fv = Future Value (Nilai yang akan datang)
I = Bunga (i = interest / suku bunga)
n = tahun ke-
An = Anuity
SI = Simple interest dalam rupiah
P0 = pokok/jumlah uang yg dipinjam/dipinjamkan pada periode waktu
Anuitas
Anuitas adalah suatu rangkaian penerimaan atau pembayaran tetap yang dilakukan secara berkala pada jangka waktu tertentu. Selain itu anuitas juga diartikan sebagai kontrak di mana perusahaan asuransi memberikan pembayaran secara berkala sebagai imbalan premi yang telah Anda bayar. Contohnya adalah bunga yang diterima dari obligasi atau dividen tunai dari suatu saham preferen.
Ada dua jenis anuitas:
1. Anuitas biasa (ordinary) adalah anuitas yang pembayaran atau penerimaannya terjadi pada akhir periode
2. Anuitas jatuh tempo (due) adalah anuitas yang pembayaran atau penerimaannya dilakukan di awal periode.
Nilai Sekarang Anuitas (Present Value Annuity)
Nilai Sekarang Anuitas adalah nilai hari ini dari pembayaran sejumlah dana tertentu yang dilakukan secara teratur selama waktu yang telah ditentukan. Dengan kata lain, jumlah yang harus anda tabung dengan tingkat bunga tertentu untuk mandapatkan sejumlah dana tertentu secara teratur dalam jangka waktu tertentu.
Anuitas Abadi
Anuitas abadi adalah serangkaian pembayaran yang sama jumlahnya dan diharapkan akanberlangsung terus menerus.
PV (Anuitas Abadi) = Pembayaran = PMT
Tingkat suku bunga i
Obligasi terusan adalah sebuah obligasi terbitan pemerintah inggris untuk mengkonsolidasikan utang-utang masa lalu, dengan kata lain consol adalah obligasi terusan.
Pinjaman yang Diamortisasi
Salah satu penerapan penting dari bunga majemuk adalah pinjaman yang dibayarkan secara – dicicil selama waktu tertentu. Termasuk di dalamnya adalah kredit mobil, kredit kepemilikan rumah, kredit pendidikan, dan pinjaman-pinjaman bisnis lainnya selain pinjaman jangka waktu sangat pendek dan obligasi jangka panjang. Jika suatu pinjaman akan dibayarkan dalam periode yang sama panjangnya (bulanan, kuartalan, atau tahunan), maka pinjaman ini disebut juga sebagai pinjaman yang diamortisasi (amortized loan).

DIVIDEN

noreply@blogger.com (sourceSite) — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 04:37:00 +0000

Rasio Pembayaran Sasaran (Target Payout Ratio)
Yang dinyatakan sebagai persentase dari laba bersih yang akan dibayarkan sebagai dividen tunai. Hal ini didasarkan pada preferensi Investor untuk memilih antara dividen atau keuntungan modal, apakah investor lebih menyukai :

Laba dibagikan sebagai dividen tunai atau,
Membiarkan perusahaan melakukan pembelian kembali atau menanamkan kembali dalam bisnis dengan harapan mendapatkan keuntungan dimasa yang akan datang.

Hal ini diperhitungkan :

Po = D1/Ks-g

Kebijakan Dividen Optimal
adalah kebijakan dividen yang mencapai suatu keseimbangan antara dividen saat ini dan pertumbuhan di masa yang akan datang and memaksimalkan harga saham perusahaan.
Dalam bagian ini kita lihat 3 teori tentang preferensi investor :

Teori Irelevansi dividen, Merton M dan Franco Modiglian berpendapat bahwa nilai perusahaan hanya ditentukan oleh kemampuan dasar untuk menghasilkan laba dan resiko bisnisnya. Dengan kata lain bahwa nilai dari sebuah perusahaan akan tergantung hanya pada laba yang diproduksi oleh aktiva-aktivanya, bukan pada bagian laba tersebut akan dibagi menjadi dividend an saldo laba ditahan.
Teori “burung di tangan” (birt in the hand theory), merupakan teori yang menyatakan bahwa nilai sebuah perusahaan akan dapat dimaksimalkan dengan menetapkan rasio pembayaran dividen yang tinggi.
Teori preferensi pajak, apabila dipandang dari sudut pandang pajak, para investor umumnya akan menyukai pembayaran dividen yang rendah ketimbang menerima pembayaran yang tinggi, hal ini dipengaruhi oleh beberapa factor yaitu :

Keuntungan modal jangka panjang dikenakan tarif pajak 20 %, sedangkan laba dividen dikenakan tarif efektif yang dapat mencapai angka maksimal 38,6%. Para investor yang menerima sebagian besar dividen memilih menahan atau menanamkan kembali labanya dalam bisnis, sehingga pertumbuhan laba mungkin akan mengarah pada kenaikan harga saham, dan akibatnya keuntungan modal dengan pajak rendah akan menggantikan dividen yang pajaknya tinggi.
Pajak atas keuntungan tidak akan dibayarkan sampai saham tersebut dijual. Seorang ahli waris tidak dikenakan pajak atas keuntungan modal

Karena keunggulan tersebut para investor umumnya menyukai perusahaan menahan sebagian besar laba mereka.

Faktor-faktor yang Mempengaruhi Kebijakan Dividen

Posisi Likuiditas Perusahaan, karena dividen merupakan “cash outflow” maka makin kuatnya posisi likuiditas perusahaan, berarti makin besar kemampuan untuk membayar dividen.Dengan sendirinya likuiditas perusahaan ditentukan oleh keputusan-keputusan dibidang investasi dan cara pemenuhan kebutuhan dananya. Maka dapat dikatakan bahwa makin kuat posisi likuiditas perusahaan terhadap prospek kebutuhan dana di masa depan, makin tinggi “dividen payout ratio”nya.
Kebutuhan Dana Untuk Membayar Utang, apabila perusahaan menetapkan bahwa pelunasan utangnya akan diambil dari laba ditahan. Berarti perusahaan memperkecil pembayaran dividen.dengan kata lain perusahaan menetapkan dividen payout ratio yang rendah.
Tingkat Pertumbuhan Perusahaan, makin cepat pertumbuhan perusahaan berarti makin tinggi pula dana untuk membiayai pertumbuhan perusahaan tersebut. Pada situasi ini biasanya perusahaan lebih suka menahan earning’nya daripada dibayarkan sebagai dividen, hal ini berarti makin rendah “dividen payout ratio” nya. Apabila perusahaan telah dapat memenuhi kebutuhannya dari sumber dana pasar modal atau yang lainnya maka perusahaan dapat menetapkan “dividend payout ratio yang tinggi”.
Pengawasan Terhadap Perusahaan, mempercayakan pada pembelanjaan intern dalam rangka usaha mempertahankan kontrol terhadap perusahaan, hal ini berarti mengurangi “dividend payout ratio” nya.

Macam-macam Kebijakan Dividen

Kebijakan dividen Stabil
Kebijakan dividen dengan penetapan jumlah dividen minimal plus jumlah ekstra tertentu
Kebijakan dividen dengan penetapan dividen payout ratio yang konstan
Kebijakan dividen fleksibel

Model Dividen Residu
Model dimana dividen yang dibayarkan akan ditentukan sama dengan laba bersih dikurangi jumlah saldo aba ditahan yang dibutuhkan untuk mendanai anggaran modal perusahaan yang optimal.
Menurut model ini perusahaan akan mengikuti 4 langkah dalam menentukan sasaran rasio pembayarannya yaitu:

Menentukan anggaran modal yang optimal
Menentukan jumlah ekuitas yang dibutuhkan untuk memenuhi anggaran tersebut
Laba ditahan digunakan unyuk memenuhi kebutuhan ekuitas
Dividen dibayarkan jika laba yang tersedia lebih banyak daripada yang dibutuhkan untuk mendukung anggaran modal yang optimal.

Jika perusahaan menikuti kebijakan dividen residu maka dinyatakan sbb :

Dividen = Laba bersih - saldo laba ditahan untuk mendanai investasi – investasi baru
= Laba bersih – [(Rasio ekuitas sasaran) (total anggaran modal)]

Jika perusahaan mengikuti model residu maka hendaknya :

Mengestimasikan laba dan peluang investasi perusahaan, secara rata-rata, untuk periode sekitar lima tahun ke depan
Menggunakan ramalan informasi untuk menghitung rasio pembayaran model residu dan jumlah dolar dividen selama periode perencanaan
Menentukan suatu rasio pembayaran sasaran berdasarkan data yang telah diproyeksikan

Prosedur pembayaran

Tanggal Deklarasi, tanggal dimana para direksi perusahaan mengeluarkan sebuah pernyataan yang mengumumkan pembayaran dividen.
Tanggal Pemegang Saham Tercatat, jika daftar yang dimiliki perusahaan menyatakan pemegang saham sebagai seorang pemilik pada tanggal hari ini. Maka pemegang saham tersebut akan menerima dividen.
Tanggal Eks Dividen, tanggal dimana hak atas dividen saat ini tidak lagi menyertai sebuah saham, biasanya 2 hari kerja sebelum tanggal pemegang saham tercatat.
Tanggal Pembayaran, tanggal dimana sebuah perusahaan benar-benar mengirimkan cek pembayaran dividennya.

Faktor yang Mempengaruhi Kebijakan Dividen
a. Batasan

Pembatasan saham preferen
Aturan penurunan nilai modal
Ketersediaan kas
Sanksi pajak atas akumulasi laba secara tidak benar

b. Peluang Investasi

Jumlah peluang investasi yang menguntungkan
Kemungkinan untuk mempercepat atau menunda proyek

c. Sumber Modal Alternatif

Biaya penjualan saham baru
Kemampuan untuk menggantikan utang dengan ekuitas
Pengendalian

d. Pengaruh Kebijakan Dividen pada Ks

Keinginan Para Pemegang saham akan laba saat ini vs laba masa depan
Penerimaan setiap resiko dividen vs keuntungan modal
Keunggulan pajak dari keuntungan modal atas dividen
Kandungan informasi dari dividen (pensinyalan)

Dividen dan Pemecahan Saham
Pemecahan saham
Tindakan yang diambil oleh sebuah perusahaan untuk meningkatkan jumlah lembar saham beredar.
Deviden Saham
Deviden yang dibayarkan dalam bentuk penambahan saham dan bukan uang tunai

Pengaruh Pada harga Saham

Harga saham akan naik
Kenaikan harga saham perusahaan akibat sinyal-sinyal prospek laba dan dividen
Harga saham akan jatuh jika tidak diumumkan adanya kenaikan laba dan dividen

Pembelian SahamKembali (Stock Repurchases)
Alternatif dari pembayaran dividen kas, perusahaan dapat melakukan pembelian saham kembali. Pembelian saham perusahaan yang beredar tersebut bisa dilakukan melalui pasar sekunder Bursa Efek. Saham yang dibeli tersebut masuk dalam rekening treasury stock. Secara teoritis, nilai perusahaan sebelum dan sesudah pembelian saham kembali akan sama.

Keuntungan Pembelian Saham Kembali

Pembelian saham kembali bisa menghemat pajak.
Pengumuman pembelian kembali bisa dianggap sebagai signal positif oleh investor, kerana pembelian saham kembali seringkali didorong oleh motivasi manajer yang mengganggap bahwa harga saham undervalued (lebih rendah dari yang seharusnya).
Pembayaran dividen biasanya dilakukan dengan pola stabil.
Pemegang saham mempunyai pilihan dengan pembelian saham kembali. Apabila membutuhkan kas, mereka bisa menjual saham yang mereka peroleh. Sebaliknya, jika tidak membutuhkan kas, atau menghindari pajak, mereka bisa menginvestasikan kembali kedalam saham perusahaan.
Dalam beberapa situasi tertentu, pembelian saham kembali dilakukan secara selektif

Kerugian Pembelian Saham Kembali

Pemegang saham bisa mempunyai preferensi yang berbeda antara dividen kas dan pembelian saham kembali (keuntungan diperoleh dari capital gain). Dividen kas cenderung lebih bisa ‘diandalkan’ karena memberi pendapatan yang jelas (kas yang diterima), dan relatif stabil.
Perusahaan barangkali membayar harga pembelian kembali terlalu tinggi, sehingga merugikan pemegang saham saat ini (yang tetap memegang saham).
Pemegang saham yang menjual sahamnya barangkali tidak mengetahui persis implikasi dan efek dari program pembelian saham kembali. Apabila ternyata merasa dirugikan, mereka dapat menuntut perusahaan.

Dividen Saham dan Stock Split
Penyesuaian Akuntansi Dividen Saham dan Stock Split (Pemecahan Saham)
Konsekuensi dari dividen saham dan stock split adalah bertambahnya jumlah saham yang beredar. Tetapi, karena tidak ada nilai tambah (secara ekonomis), maka harga saham per-lembar menjadi lebih kecil. Total efek dari dividen saham dan stock split tidak ada, dengan kata lain, nilai total perusahaan (saham) akan sama.

Alasan Dilakukannya Dividen Saham dan Stock

Perusahaan ingin menahan kas, tetapi juga ingin membayar dividen. Resolusinya adalah dengan membayar stock dividen atau stock splits.
Perusahaan ingin memperoleh trading range yang dianggap ideal.
Perusahaan ingin memberi signal ke pasar. Penemuan empiris menunjukkan bahwa harga akan bereaksi positif pada saat stock split diumumkan.

Reverse Split
Reverse split merupakan kebalikan dari stock spit (pemecahan saham). Dalam reverse split, beberapa lembar saham disatukan menjadi satu saham.

Dalam dunia nyata, reverse split dilakukan karena beberapa alasan. Pertama, saham yang nilainya terlalu kecil sering dianggap sebagai saham yang tidak baik atau tidak ‘terhormat’. Investor menganggap perusahaan tersebut mempunyai prospek yang kurang baik, dan cenderung menilai rendah (underestimate). Untuk itu harga sahamdinaikkan agar mendekati range yang ideal. Kedua, jika harga saham meningkat, biaya transaksi diharapkan menjadi semakin kecil (kebalikan dari penemuan empiris efek stock split). Biaya transaksi yang lebih kecil diharapkan mendorong likuiditas saham.

INVESTASI DI PASAR MODAL BERKEMBANG

noreply@blogger.com (sourceSite) — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 04:35:00 +0000

Pada era globalisasi saat ini, dimana hambatan-hambatan perekonomian semakin pudar, peralihan arus dana dari pihak yang surplus kepada yang defisit akan semakin cepat dan tanpa hambatan. Pasar Modal sebagai pintu investasi terhadap aliran dana dari pihak yang kelebihan kekayaan (surplus) kepada pihak yang kekurangan dana (defisit) berperan sebagai lembaga perantara keuangan. Investor disini adalah pihak yang surplus dalam kaitannya dengan keuangan.

Siapakah pihak-pihak surplus ini? Dalam kaitannya dalam investasi dan sumber dana yang digunakannya, investor dapat dibagi. Pertama, adalah investor domestik yaitu adalah investor yang berasal dari dalam negeri yang menyusun portofolio asetnya di pasar modal dalam negeri. Kedua adalah investor asing, yaitu investor yang memiliki sejumlah dana dari luar negeri yang menyusun portofolio asetnya pada sejumlah negara yang berbeda.

Investasi asing yang datang ke negara-negara lain sebenarnya memiliki motif klasik yang meliputi, motif mencari bahan mentah atau sumber daya alam, mencari pasar baru dan meminimalkan biaya. Dari motif klasik tersebut kadangkala investor memiliki motif lain yaitu motif mengembangkan teknologi. Investor menyalurkan dananya ke negara lain biasanya tidak hanya membawa satu motif saja tetapi bisa karena beberapa motif sekaligus.

Paling tidak ada empat cara investor dapat masuk ke suatu negara: distressed asset investment, strategic investment, direct investment dan portfolio investment. Distressed asset investment adalah investasi yang dilakukan untuk mendapatkan kepemilikan atau membeli hutang suatu perusahaan dalam kesulitan keuangan. Kedua, strategic investment secara umum investor asing mengakuisisi perusahaan yang memiliki pangsa pasar cukup luas dan berada dalam segmen bisnis serta faktor lokasi yang mendukung strategi ekspansi perusahaan investor. Ketiga yakni investasi langsung (direct investment) biasanya berlangsung pada sektor yang belum begitu berkembang, misalnya pembangunan yang sarat teknologi atau pembangunan di sektor otomotif, biasanya perusahaan. Keempat adalah portofolio investment yaitu investasi dalam surat hutang dan saham di pasar modal.

Portofolio investment inilah yang selama ini menjadi perhatian banyak praktisi di bidang pasar modal. Mengapa demikian? Karena jenis investor ini merupakan yang paling cepat memindahkan eksposurnya di suatu negara jika terjadi gejolak (politik, ekonomi, kurs) yang diintrepretasikan sebagai ketidakpastian. Mereka juga adalah investor yang memiliki pilihan paling luas dibanding ke tiga jenis investor di atas. Sehingga jika ada kejadian tertentu baik secara makro, sekoral ataupun regulasi pemerintah, maka investor ini adalah yang lebih rentan dan sensitif terhadap refleksi atas informasi tersebut. Besarnya nilai investasi asing yang masuk atau keluar, praktis juga akan mempengaruhi pasar secara keseluruhan akibat adanya volume transaksi yang besar.

Peranan modal asing dalam pembangunan negara telah lama diperbincangkan oleh para ahli ekonomi pembangunan. Secara garis besar menurut Chereney dan Carter yaitu pertama, sumber dana eksternal (modal asing) dapat dimanfaatkan oleh emerging country sebagai dasar untuk mempercepat investasi dan pertumbuhan ekonomi. Kedua, pertumbuhan ekonomi yang meningkat perlu diikuti dengan perubahan struktur produksi dan perdagangan. Ketiga, modal asing dapat berperan penting dalam mobilisasi dana maupun transformasi struktural. Keempat, kebutuhan akan modal asing menjadi menurun segera setelah perubahan struktural benar-benar terjadi (meskipun modal asing di masa selanjutnya lebih produktif).

EMERGING MARKET IN EMERGING COUNTRY

Indonesia sempat mengalami kehancuran ekonomi yang selama ini telah dibangun melalui sendi-sendi kebijakan orde baru mulai merangkak kembali menyusun fondasi perekonomiannya. International Financial Corporation (IFC) mengkaitkan klasifikasi bursa saham dengan klasifikasi negara. Jika negara tersebut masih tergolong sebagai negara berkembang, maka pasar di negara tersebut juga dalam tahap berkembang, meskipun bursa sahamnya berfungsi penuh dan diatur secara baik.

Pasar modal berkembang dapat diidentifikasi melalui suatu negara, apakah negara tersebut merupakan negara maju atau tergolong negara berkembang. Indikatornya adalah pendapatan perkapita dari suatu negara, biasanya yang termasuk dalam negara berpenghasilan rendah sampai menengah. Namun karakteristik yang paling mencolok adalah dilihat nilai kapitalisasi pasarnya yaitu banyaknya perusahaan yang tercatat, kumulatif volume perdagangan, keketatan peraturan pasar modal, hingga kecanggihan dan kultur investor domestiknya.

Konsekuensi pasar modal berkembang adalah nilai kapitalisasi pasarnya yang kecil. Ukuran suatu kapitalisasi pasar biasanya dilihat dari rasio perbandingan dengan nilai produk domestik bruto suatu negara. Selain itu konsekuensi lainnya adalah terdapatnya volume transaksi perdagangan yang tipis (thin trading) yang disebabkan oleh ketidaksingkronan perdagangan (non-syncronous trading) di pasar. Perdagangan yang tidak singkron disebabkan oleh banyaknya sekuritas yang teracatat tidak seluruhnya diperdagangkan, artinya terdapat beberapa waktu tertentu dimana suatu sekuritas tidak terjadi transaksi (Hartono, 2003).

Indonesia yang sampai saat ini masih tercatat di IFC masih sebagai negara berkembang dengan iklim investasi terburuk di regional Asia Timur. Walaupun dengan catatan seperti itu, pada kenyataannya kita masih dilirik oleh investor asing. Kenyataannya bahwa terdapat perusahaan-perusahaan nasional dengan notabene berada di sektor strategis negara, ditawar oleh beberapa institusi asing melalui akuisisi saham. Terdapatnya aliran dana masuk sebagai investasi yang pada umumnya merupakan penanaman modal asing seharusnya bisa menjadi pendongkrak perekonomian secara makro.

Alasan utama investor asing memindahkan dananya ke negara berkembang adalah karena negara berkembang memiliki potensi-potensi usaha yang belum tergali seluruhnya, seperti pada motif klasik investasi ke negara lain. Michael Fairbanks dan Stace Lindsay konsultan senior pada Monitor Company mengemukakan tujuan investor asing datang ke negara-negara miskin yaitu biasanya hanya melihat kesempatan untuk menarik sumber daya alam , upah kerja murah dan sebagai sasaran produk atau jasa yang tidak berkualitas bagus.

Namun terdapat alasan lain yang mendampingi motif tersebut, yaitu perbedaan yang mencolok dengan negara maju. Jika kita gunakan pendekatan daur hidup usaha maka negara berkembang masuk dalam kategori bertumbuh (growth) dibanding negara maju yang masuk dalam kategori matang (mature). Artinya bahwa terdapat daya tarik dari pertumbuhan ekonomi yang tinggi yang tentu saja disertai oleh return yang tinggi pula, karena pertumbuhan ekonomi merupakan indikator agregat dari industri di suatu negara. Misalnya bisnis telekomunikasi selular di Indonesia yang tergarap secara padat baru di Pulau Jawa saja, sedangkan di luar itu masih berpotensi tinggi untuk dijadikan pangsa pasar baru.

PERAN PEMERINTAH DAN INVESTOR DOMESTIK DI PASAR MODAL BERKEMBANG

Mark Mobius praktisi dan ahli di industri investasi internasional mengemukakan bahwa dengan diperkenalkannya investor asing ke pasar tentu saja berfungsi sebagai katalis, yang mendorong investasi lokal. Modal asing yang masuk ke negara tertentu memungkinkan bisnis di negara tersebut untuk tumbuh dengan laju yang lebih cepat dibandingkan jika hanya memobilisasi sumber daya domestik.

Hanya saja arus uang yang berasal dari portofolio investment seringkali dikhawatirkan hanya aliran uang panas dari negara lain. Aliran dana yang sering dikenal sebagai capital fight ini dipandang oleh pemerintah sebagai investasi yang spekulatif, tidak dapat diandalkan dan cenderung sarat akan kegiatan ambil untung (profit taking) di pasar modal. Pada tahap selanjutnya dana seperti ini akan menimbulkan ketidakstabilan ekonomi domestik.

Permasalahannya yang selalu menjadi momok di pasar modal ini sebenarnya telah banyak disuarakan oleh para ekonom, praktisi dan regulatori dalam industri ini. Hanya saja kita hanya seperti mendengar suatu informasi yang masuk dari telinga kiri keluar dari telinga kanan. Permasalahannya adalah untuk membuat kualitas aliran dana investasi tersebut bukan kuantitas aliran dananya. Kualitas investasi adalah jumlah dana yang diinvestasikan secara jangka panjang yang digunakan untuk membangun sektor riil.

Secara sederhana adalah dengan menjaga suatu kestabilan ekonomi makro (misalnya inflasi terkendali, ekonomi bertumbuh, dsb), salah satu cara untuk mewujudkannya yaitu dengan menciptakan suatu sistem pasar yang adil dan kompetitif. Kompetitif dan adil artinya bahwa tidak ada pihak yang diuntungkan secara berlebih akibat adanya informasi yang bias dan sebaliknya. Sebagai contoh adanya pungutan liar yang marak di negara kita yang dilakukan oleh oknum yang terjaring dalam suatu sindikasi tertentu, dengan membayar pungutan tersebut misalnya, perusahaan diperlancar dalam pengurusan perijinan dibanding perusahaan yang tidak melakukan hal itu. Pungutan liar juga mengandung ketidakpastian harga yang tinggi karena tidak terdapat standar yang jelas dan dilakukan secara ilegal. Pungutan liar dapat dikategorikan sebagai biaya akibat beban risiko yang menyebabkan biaya produksi lebih tinggi.

Douglass North mengemukakan biaya transaksi banyak berhubungan dengan kinerja ekonomi keseluruhan, semakin rendah biaya transaksi maka suatu negara akan semakin mengalami pertumbuhan ekonomi yang dapat dipertahankan. Secara spesifik, Gayle P. W. Jackson dalam artikelnya yang berjudul Pemerintahan untuk Pasar Modern mengemukakan bahwa untuk mengurangi ketidakpastian akibat biaya transaksi dapat dilakukan dengan meliputi, sistem kepemilikan yang jelas, penggunakan standar, sumberdaya yang beraneka dan meningkat, regulator yang ketat, memiliki basis data dan menjamin kelancaran penyebaran informasi sehingga terjadi iklim yang kompetitif untuk mengurangi informasi yang asimetris.

Peran pemerintah sebagai fungsi regulator tidaklah cukup karena secanggih dan seketat apapun regulasi bila tidak dilakukan dengan kesadaran (awareness) yang tinggi pastinya akan berjalan setengah-setengah dan berikutnya setiap pelaku akan selalu mencari celah dari regulasi tersebut. Pemerintah layaknya juga harus dapat peran sebagai guarantor yang memberikan jaminan kepada investor baik domestik maupun asing. Jaminan kepastian ekonomi tidak lah cukup, pemerintah entah bagaimana caranya harus bisa memberikan kepastian hukum dan kepastian kondisi politik. Karena dua faktor tersebut juga berkaitan erat dengan faktor kultur sumber daya manusia.

Pernak-pernik utopis yang selama ini dijadikan kampanye secara besar-besaran oleh pemerintah seharusnya mulai benar-benar dijalankan. Harapannya adalah dapat terjadinya efek merembes kebawah (trickle down effect) yaitu dengan merubah kultur, tingkah laku dan perilaku pemerintah yang memberikan sokongan moral ke masyarakat. Tetapi hal ini tidak serta merta dapat berhasil dengan sendirinya, pemerintah juga harus bisa membimbing masyarakat untuk berani menjadi invetor domestik sehingga terjadi suatu gerakan dari bawah ke atas (bottom up).

Pasar modal seperti ini memiliki kecenderungan return tinggi tetapi tinggi pula risikonya. Momentum aliran dana asing selama ini yang menghiasi pasar modal Indonesia sebaiknya juga disambut dengan aliran dana domestik untuk dapat meningkatkan kapitalisasi pasar. Dengan cara seperti itu peran pasar modal sebagai penggerak roda pembangunan dan peningkat kesejahteraan masyarakat dapat terwujud. Pasar modal tidaklah hanya dikuasai oleh satu atau dua kelompok saja tetapi merupakan sebuah sistem yang terintegrasi untuk bergerak bersama-sama antara pemerintah, pelaku bisnis, dan masyarakat.

MAKALAH AKUNTANSI MANAJEMEN DAN AKUNTANSI KEUANGAN

noreply@blogger.com (sourceSite) — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 12:30:00 +0000

Makalah ini membahas Akuntansi Manajemen dan Akuntansi Keuangan serta keterkaitan diantara keduanya.

DEFINISI AKUNTANSI MANAJEMEN DAN AKUNTANSI KEUANGAN
Akuntansi manajemen adalah disiplin ilmu yang berkenaan dengan penggunaan informasi akuntansi oleh para manajemen dan pihak-pihak internal lainnya untuk keperluan penghitungan biaya produk, perencanaan, pengendalian dan evaluasi, serta pengambilan keputusan. Adapun tujuan instruksional umum dari mata kuliah ini adalah mahasiswa diharapkan dapat mengevaluasi dan merekayasa sistem akuntansi manajemen yang cocok dengan kondisi operasi dan strategi organisasi.

Akuntansi keuangan adalah bagian dari akuntansi yang berkaitan dengan penyiapan laporan keuangan untuk pihak luar, seperti pemegang saham, kreditor, pemasok, serta pemerintah. Prinsip utama yang dipakai dalam akuntansi keuangan adalah persamaan akuntansi (Aktiva = Kewajiban + Modal). Akuntansi keuangan berhubungan dengan masalah pencatatan transaksi untuk suatu perusahaan atau organisasi dan penyusunan berbagai laporan berkala dari hasil pencatatan tersebut. Laporan ini yang disusun untuk kepentingan umum dan biasanya digunakan pemilik perusahaan untuk menilai prestasi manajer atau dipakai manajer sebagai pertanggungjawaban keuangan terhadap para pemegang saham. Hal penting dari akuntansi keuangan adalah adanya Standar Akuntansi Keuangan (SAK) yang merupakan aturan-aturan yang harus digunakan didalam pengukuran dan penyajian laporan keuangan untuk kepentingan eksternal. Dengan demikian, diharapkan pemakai dan penyusun laporan keuangan dapat berkomunikasi melalui laporan keuangan ini, sebab mereka menggunakan acuan yang sama yaitu SAK. SAK ini mulai diterapkan di Indonesia pada 1994, menggantikan Prinsip-prinsi Akuntansi Indonesia tahun 1984. (Wikipedia)

SEJARAH AKUNTANSI MANAJEMEN
Pada tahun 1880an, perusahaan manufaktur di Amerika mulai berkonsentrasi dalam pengembangan teknologi produksi yang berkapasitas besar. Para manajer dan insinyur pada perusahaan metal telah mengembangkan prosedur untuk menghitung relevant product cost yang disebut scientific management. Prosedur ini digunakan untuk menganalisis produktivitas dan laba suatu produk. Akan tetapi seiring berkembangnya pemikiran akuntansi maka setelah tahun 1914 prosedur tersebut mulai hilang dari praktik akuntansi perusahaan.

Setelah Perang Dunia I, terdapat peraturan akuntansi keuangan yang mempunyai dampak berkurangnya informasi akuntansi yang bermanfaat untuk mengevaluasi kinerja bawahan dalam perusahaan besar (lost relevance). Sampai tahun 1920an, semua manajer percaya pada informasi yang berhubungan dengan proses produksi utama, transaksi dan even yang menghasilkan jumlah nominal pada laporan keuangan. Setelah tahun 1925, informasi yang digunakan oleh manajer menjadi lebih sederhana dan banyak perusahaan manufaktur di Amerika telah mengembangkan prosedur akuntansi manajemen seperti yang dikenal sekarang.

Selama kurun waktu lebih dari enam puluh tahun, akuntan akademisi berusaha untuk mengembalikan relevansi antara informasi kos akunting dengan informasi akuntansi keuangan. Usaha tersebut menggunakan model perusahaan manufaktur sederhana, sejenis dengan perusahaan tekstil abad 19, dan dalam rangka mengatasi masalah produksi, akademisi menyusun ulang informasi pelaporan kos persediaan. Meskipun demikian, model tersebut terlalu sederhana untuk menjelaskan masalah nyata yang dihadapi oleh manajer akan tetapi hal tersebut dimahfumkan dalam rangka mempermudah bagaimana informasi kos yang berasal dari laporan keuangan dapat dibuat relevan dengan pengambilan keputusan (kos manajemen).

Mulai tahun 1980an sampai sekarang, akuntansi manajemen mengalami masa perkembangan yang pesat dengan perannya sebagai pendamping akuntansi keuangan.

Johnson dan Kaplan menuliskannya dengan indah dalam “Relevance Lost: The Rise and Fall of Management Accounting”. Buku yang cukup layak baca untuk memahami tentang akuntansi manajemen.

KRISIS DALAM AKUNTANSI MANAJEMEN
Bob Eiler dan Tom Cucuzza

Selama beberapa bulan lalu, profesi akuntansi mengalami peristiwa dan perubahan besar, yang kebanyakan hanya berfokus pada kinerja dan isu akuntansi keuangan ( seperti aturan-aturan akuntansi keuangan yang kompleks, aspek etis dalam profesi dan sebagainya). Sedangkan dalam jurnal yang kami ambil berargumen bahwa krisis dalam akuntansi manajemen sama besar dengan krisis dalam akuntansi keuangan. Maka dapat disimpulkan dengan kaitannya krisis yang terjadi pada akuntansi manajemen adalah :

A. DARI FAKTOR PENGGUNANYA

Dalam akuntansi manajemen tradisional hanya berfokus pada penyediaan kepada pengguna internal seperti pabrik, divisi, atau lingkungan internal perusahaan dan tidak mengikuti perluasan ekonomi perusahaan, terutama pada bagian eksternal dari bisnis yang terdiri dari persediaan, joint venture, dan tujuan khusus perusahaan yang lain. Seiring dengan tuntutan global lebih diperhatikan focus pada kemampuan akuntansi manajemen untuk mengukur dan mengevaluasi secara internal dan eksternal bidang-bidang dalam perusahaan guna mengoptimalisasikan keputusan yang akan diambil oleh pihak eksternal. Pihak-pihak tersebut adalah :

1. Pihak internal
Pihak internal adalah pihak yang berada dalam struktur organisasi. Manajemen adalah pihak yang paling membutuhkan laporan akuntansi yang tepat dan akurat untuk mengambil keputusan yang baik dan benar. Contohnya seperti manajer yang melihat posisi keuangan perusahaan untuk memutuskan apakah akan membeli gedung untuk kantor cabang baru atau tidak.

2. Pihak eksternal
a. Investor
Investor membutuhkan informasi keuangan perusahaan untuk menentukan apakah akan menanamkan modalnya atau tidak. Jika dalam prediksi investor akan memberikan keuntungan yang baik, maka investor akan menyetorkan modal ke perusahaan, dan begitu juga sebaliknya.

b. Pemegang saham / pemilik perusahaan
Para pemilik perusahaan yang mempunyai bagian saham perusahaan membutuhkan informasi keuangan perusahaan untuk dapat mengetahui sejauh mana kemajuan atau kemunduran yang dialami perusahaan. Pemegang saham akan mendapatkan keuntungan dari dividen yang akan semakin besar jika perusahaan untung besar.

c. Pemerintah
Besarnya pajak yang harus dibayarkan perusahaan atau organisasi kepada pemerintah sebagaian besar berdasarkan atas informasi pada laporan keuangan perusahaan.

d. Kreditur
Jika perusahaan sedang terdesak dan membutuhkan dana segar perusahaan mungkin akan meminjam uang pada kreditor seperti meminjam uang di bank, berhutang barang pada supplyer / pemasok. Kreditur akan memberikan dana jika perusahaan memiliki kondisi keuangan yang baik dan tidak akan memiliki potensi yang besar untuk merugi.

e. Pihak lainnya
Sebenarnya masih banyak pihak lain dari luar perusahaan perusahaan yang mungkin saja akan menggunakan laporan / informasi akuntansi suatu organisasi seperti para karyawan, serikat pekerja, auditor akuntan publik, polisi, pelajar / mahasiswa, wartawan, dan banyak lagi lainnya.

B. DARI FAKTOR PEMBATASAN PADA MASUKAN DAN PROSES

Akuntansi manajemen tidak tergantung pada prinsip-prinsip akuntansi. SEC dan FASB menetapkan prosedur akuntansi yang harus di dikuti untuk laporan keuangan.masukan dan prosess dari akuntansi keuangan harus jelas dan terbatas. Hanya kegiatan-kegiatan ekonomi tertentu yang memenuhi kualifikasi sebagai masukan dan proses, harus mengikuti metode yang di terima oleh umum. Tidak seperti akuntansi keuangan, akuntansi manajemen tidak mempunyai lembaga khusus yang mengatur format, isi, aturan dalam memilih masukan serta proses, dan penyusunan laporan keuangan. Manajer bebas memilih informasi yang apa pun yang mereka inginkan-penyediaanya dapat di benarkan atas dasar analisis biaya-mamfaat (cost-benefit analysis).

Dewasa ini pembebanan biaya secara konvensional sudah mulai ditinggalkan dan beralih ke pembebanan biaya berdasarkan aktivitas/activity based costing system (ABC-system). Dalam perkembangan akuntansi manajemen banyak sekali isu kontemporer dalam teknik-teknik manajemen mulai diterapkan, seperti metode just in time (JIT), total quality management (TQM), target costing, dan orientasi pelanggan.

Penilaian kinerja manajer saat ini sudah mulai mengalami pergeseran. Jika dahulu menilai kinerja seorang manajer cukup hanya dari perspektif keuangan, tetapi sekarang untuk mendapatkan gambaran yang lebih komprehensif harus dari dua perspektif yang dikenal dengan istilah balanced scorecard. Penilaian kinerja akan dilakukan dari dua sisi, yaitu keuangan (financial) dan non financial seperti penilaian pelanggan/ customer, pertumbuhan dan pembelajaran, serta proses bisnis internal.

Balanced scorecard merupakan isu-isu terbaru dalam akuntansi manajemen. Balanced scorecard merupakan suatu sistem manajemen strategic yang menjabarkan misi dan strategi suatu organisasi ke dalam tujuan operasional dan tolak ukur kinerja untuk empat perspektif yang berbeda, yaitu perspektif keuangan, perspektif pelanggan, perspektif bisnis internal, serta pembelajaran dan pertumbuhan.

C. JENIS INFORMASI
Tipe informasi akuntansi manajemen :

Informasi akuntansi manajemen dapat dihubungkan dengan tiga hal, yaitu obyek informasi (produk, departemen, aktivitas), alternatif yang akan dipilih, dan wewenang manajer. Oleh karena itu, informasi akuntansi manajemen dibagi menjadi tiga tipe informasi:

1. Informasi Akuntansi Penuh (Full Accounting Information).
Informasi akuntansi penuh mencakup informasi masa lalu maupun informasi masa yang akan datang. Informasi akuntansi penuh yang berisi informasi masa lalu bermanfaat untuk pelaporan informasi keuangan kepada manajemen puncak dan pihak luar perusahaan, analisis kemampuan menghasilkan laba, pemberian jawaban atas pertanyaan “berapa biaya yang telah dikeluarkan untuk sesuatu”, dan penentuan harga jual dalam cost type contract.

Informasi akuntansi penuh yang berisi informasi masa yang akan datang bermanfaat untuk penyusunan program, penentuan harga jual normal, penentuan harga transfer, dan penentuan harga jual yang diatur oleh pemerintah.

2. Informasi Akuntansi Diferensial (Differential Accounting Information).
Informasi akuntansi diferensial merupakan taksiran perbedaan aktiva, pendapatan, dan/atau biaya dalam alternatif tindakan yang lain. Informasi akuntansi diferensial mempunyai dua unsur pokok, yaitu merupakan informasi masa yang akan datang dan berbeda di antara alternatif yang dihadapi oleh pengambil keputusan. Informasi akuntansi diferensial yang hanya bersangkutan dengan biaya disebut biaya diferensial (differential costs), yang hanya bersangkutan dengan pendapatan disebut pendapatan diferensial (differential revenue), dan yang bersangkutan dengan aktiva disebut aktiva diferensial (differential assets).

3. Informasi Akuntansi Pertanggungjawaban (Responbility Accounting )
Informasi akuntansi pertanggungjawaban merupakan informasi aktiva, pendapatan, dan/atau biaya yang dihubungkan dengan manajer yang bertanggungjawab atas pusat pertanggungjawaban tertentu. Informasi akuntansi pertanggungjawaban merupakan informasi yang penting dalam proses pengendalian manajemen karena informasi tersebut menenkankan hubungan antara informasi keuangan dengan manajer yang bertanggungjawab terhadap perencanaan dan pelaksanaannya. Informasi akuntansi pertanggungjawaban dengan demikian merupakan dasar untuk menganalisis kinerja manajer dan sekaligus untuk memotivasi para manajer dalam melaksanakan rencana mereka yang dituangkan dalam anggaran mereka masing-masing.

Sistem informasi akuntansi manajemen tidak terikat oleh suatu kriteria formal yang menjelaskan sifat dari masukan, proses dan keluarannya. Kriteria tersebut fleksibel dan berdasarkan pada tujuan yang hendak dicapai manajemen.

Tujuan umum sistem akuntansi manajemen:
1. Menyediakan informasi yang diperlukan dalam penghitungan harga pokok jasa,produk, dan tujuan lain yang diinginkan manajemen.
2. Menyediakan informasi yang dipergunakan dalam perencanaan, pengendalian, pengevaluasian, dan perbaikan berkelanjutan.
3. Menyediakan informasi untuk pengambilan keputusan. Informasi akuntansi manajemen dapat membantu mengidentifikasi suatu masalah, menyelesaikan masalah, dan mengevaluasi kinerja. Jadi, informasi akuntansi manajemen dibutuhkan dan dipergunakan dalam semua tahap manajemen, termasuk perencanaan, pengendalian, dan pengambilan keputusan.

Informasi Akuntansi Keuangan
Informasi akuntansi keuangan adalah informasi bertujuan umum (general purposes) yang disajikan sesuai dengan Prinsip Akuntansi Berterima Umum (PABU). Informasi ini digunakan untuk pihak internal dan eksternal. Informasi Akuntansi Keuangan disajikan dengan asumsi bahwa informasi yang dibutuhkan investor, kreditor, calon investor dan kreditor, manajemen, pemerintah, dan sebagainya dapat mewakili kebutuhan informasi pihak lain selain investor dan kreditor. Dengan demikian dibutuhkan satu informasi seragam untuk semua pihak yang berkepentingan dengan bisnis perusahaan. Pada umumnya, Informasi Akuntansi Keuangan disusun dan dilaporkan secara periodik sehingga tidak dapat memenuhi kebutuhan manajemen terhadap informasi yang tepat waktu. Selain itu, Informasi Akuntansi Keuangan disajikan dengan format yang terlalu kaku sehingga kurang mampu memenuhi informasi yang dibutuhkan manajemen.

Menurut Statement of Financial Accounting (SFAC) No. 2 karakteristik kualitatif dari informasi keuangan adalah sebagai berikut :

1. Relevan maksudnya adalah kapasitas informasi yang dapat mendorong suatu keputusan apabila dimanfaatkan oleh pemakai untuk kepentingan memprediksi hasil di masa depan yang berdasarkan kejadian waktu lalu dan sekarang. Ada tiga karakteristik utama, yaitu:
-Ketepatan waktu (timeliness), yaitu informasi yang siap digunakan para pemakai sebelum kehilangan makna dan kapasitas dalam pengambilan keputusan.
-Nilai prediktif (predictive value), yaitu informasi dapat membantu pemakai dalam membuat prediksi tentang hasil akhir dari kejadian yang lalu, sekarang dan masa depan.
-Umpan balik (feedback value), yaitu kualitas informasi yang memngkinkan pemakai dapat mengkonfirmasikan ekspektasinya yang telah terjadi di masa lalu.

2. Reliable, maksudnya adalah kualitas informasi yang dijamin bebas dari kesalahan dan penyimpangan atau bias serta telah dinilai dan disajikan secara layak sesuai dengan tujuannya. Reliable mempunyai tiga karakteristik utama, yaitu:

-Dapat diperiksa (veriviability), yaitu konsensus dalam pilihan pengukuran akuntansi yang dapat dinilai melalui kemampuannya untuk meyakinkan bahwa apakah informasi yang disajikan berdasarkan metode tertentu memberikan hasil yang sama apabila diverivikasi dengan metode yang sama oleh pihak independen.
-Kejujuran penyajian (representation faithfulness), yaitu adanya kecocokan antara angka dan diskripsi akunatnsi serta sumber-sumbernya.
-Netralitas (neutrality), informasi keuangan yang netral diperuntukkan bagi kebutuhan umum para pemakai dan terlepas dari anggapan mengenai kebutuhan tertentu dan keinginan tertrentu para pemakai khusus informasi.

3. Daya Banding (comparability), informasi keuangan yang dapat dibandingkan menyajikan kesamaan dan perbedaan yang timbul dari kesamaan dasar dan perbedaan dasar dalam perusahaan dan transaksinya dan tidak semata-mata dari perbedaan perlakuan akuntansinya.

4. Konsistensi (consistency), yaitu keseragaman dalam penetapan kebijaksanaan dan prosedur akuntansi yang tidak berubah dari periode ke periode.

D. ORIENTASI WAKTU
Akuntansi keuangan lebih cenderung ke orientasi masa lalu dan dilaporkan setelah kejadian tersebut terjadi. Meskipun akuntansi manajemen juga dicatat dan dilaporkan setelah kejadian tersebut berlangsung. Hal tersebut secara kuat menegaskan penyediaan informasi. Manajemen, sebagai contoh, tidak hanya ingin tahu berapa biaya yang dikeluarkan untuk proses produksi, tetapi juga ingin mengetahui biaya apa saja yang akan dikeluarkan untuk memproduksi sebuah produk. Dengan mengetahui biaya apa saja yang digunakan untuk sebuah produksi tersebut dapat membantu perencanaan pembelian bahan baku dan penetapan harga, disamping hal-hal lainnya. Orientasi masa depan ini digunakan untuk mendukung perencanaan manajerial dan pengambilan keputusan.

Dalam artikel ini banyak kritik mengatakan bahwa akuntansi manajemen telah menjadi berorientasi jangka pendek. Sebuah perusahaan membutuhkan kebenaran informasi untuk mengukur kinerja perusahaan secara efektif, oleh karena itu pada balance scorecard seharusnya tidak hanya satu laporan saja yang menjelaskan apa yang terjadi tetapi harus berdasar pada variabilitas factor kunci yang berdampak pada kinerja ekonomi perusahaan di masa yang akan datang. Dan perusahaan sering tidak melaporkan keseluruhan secara internal untuk memahami tujuan perusahaan jangka panjang. Sehingga tidak ada gambaran seluruh perusahaan, yang pada akhirnya menyebabkan krisis di akuntansi manajemen

E. TINGKAT AGREGASI
Akuntansi manajemen menyediakan ukuran dan laporan internal yang digunakan untuk mengevaluasi kinerja perusahaan, lini produk, departemen, dan manajer. Intinya informasi yang sangat terinci di butuhkan dan disediakan. Akuntansi keuangan di lain pihak memfokuskan pada kinerja perusahaan secara keseluruhan dan memberikan sudut pandang yang lebih agregat.

Ada beberapa tahap dalam mengukur kinerja internal :
1. Melaporkan pendapatan bersih atas pembelian material di garis awal pada pelaporan manajemen dan menggunakan biaya modal untuk asset-asset. Dalam tahap ini menggunakan dasar,laporan laba rugi perusahaan terdiri dari beberapa komponen :

Pendapatan kotor
(-) biaya bahan baku (BBB)

Pendapatan setelah BBB
Penyesuaian pendapatan (kembalian ,diskon)
Pendapatan bersih setelah BBB
Biaya internal dan outsource
Margin operasi
Interest (cost of capital x asset bersih)
Laba bersih sebelum pajak
Pajak
Laba bersih setelah pajak

2. Untuk tujuan pengukuran kinerja internal,presentasi margin seharusnya di laporkan adalah laba bersih setelah pajak atas pendapatan bersih setelah BBB.

3. Laporan ukuran tambahan (operating leverage), yang mengukur perubahan persentase laba bersih antar dua periode atas perubahan persentase pendapatan bersih sehingga mencapai economies of scale yang positif.

4. Focus pada aktivitas outsource, seperti biaya teknologi informasi. Ukuran dari total biaya aktivitas outsource tidak hanya yang tercantum dalam tagihan tapi juga termasuk biayadari aktivitas internal seperti utang dagang, pengadaan barang, dan manajemen yang diperlukan untuk mendukung aktivitas outsource.

Sedangkan untuk elemen pelaporan eksternal bisa digambarkan sbb :

F. KELUASAN
Akuntansi manajemen jauh lebih luas daripada akuntansi keuangan. Akuntansi manajemen meliputi aspek-aspek ekonomi manajerial, rekayasa industry (industial reengineering), ilmu manajemen, dan juga bidang-bidang lainnya.

Keluasan pada akuntansi manajemen memiliki sifat objektivitas dan keberdayaujian yang relative tidak sepenting akuntansi keuangan, karena pada akuntansi manajemen berorientasi pada masa depan dan tidak mempengaruhi pihak luar. Keputusan yang diambil pada akmen hanya berdasarkan pada informasi taksiran (perkiraan atau amatan), tanpa melihat terlebih dahulu realitas yang sebenarnya terjadi. Oleh karena itu, keputusan yang diambil haruslah cepat sebagai tindakan yang akan dilakukan dari hasil amatan yang diperoleh. Dengan kata lain, tindakan yang diambil berupa tindakan preventif. Yakni, mencoba menaksir apa yang akan terjadi pada masa yang akan datang pada jangka pendek, meresponnya dengan harapan dapat menghasilkan keuntungan yang lebih besar.

KESIMPULAN
Ada beberapa isu yang dihadapi oleh para profesi. Akuntansi manajemen membutuhkan kebenaran informasi untuk pengukuran kinerja efektif. Akuntansi manajemen harus siap untuk menyediakan manajemen dengan seluruh gambaran perusahaan. Melapor kepada pihak-pihak di dalam organisasi untuk :

*Perencanaan
*Pengarahan dan pemberian motivasi
*Pengendalian
*Evaluasi kerja
*Penekanan pada pengambilan keputusan yang memengaruhi masa depan.
*Penekanan pada data yang relevan.
*Dibutuhkan informasi yang tepat waktu.
*Yang di susun adalah laporan segmen terinci mengenai departemen, produk, pelanggan, dan pegawai.
tidak perlu mengikuti prinsip-prinsip akuntansi yang berlaku umum.
*Tidak bersifat wajib.

MANAJEMEN

noreply@blogger.com (sourceSite) — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 07:49:00 +0000

Manajemen adalah sebuah proses perencanaan, pengorganisasian, pengkoordinasian, dan pengontrolan sumber daya untuk mencapai sasaran (goals) secara efektif dan efesien (Ricky W. Griffin).

Manajemen biasanya dikelompokkan menjadi 3 tingkat:

Operasional yaitu level paling bawah, contoh: supervisor
Menengah/Middle, contoh: department head, division head
Puncak (Eksekutif)/Top, contoh: presiden direktur

Fungsi manajemen antara lain:

Perencanaan yaitu rancangan program operasional secara terinci, penentuan tujuan, dan cara penggunaan sumber daya untuk mencapai tujuan tersebut.
Pengorganisasian yaitu menetapkan kerangka kerja dimana aktivitas-aktivitas tersebut dilakukan.
Pengendalian yaitu usaha sistematis manajemen untuk mencapai tujuan.
Controling yaitu menejer eksekutif yang bertanggung jawab atas fungsi akuntansi.

Management Accounting (Akuntansi Manajemen) adalah mengukur dan melaporkan informasi financial dan non-financial yang akan digunakan oleh manajer untuk membuat keputusan dalam rangka pencapain tujuan organisasi.

Financial Accounting (Akuntansi Keuangan) adalah mengukur dan melaporkan business transactions dan menyiapkan financial statements yang terutama ditujukan untuk pihak eksternal dan disusun berdasarkan GAAP.

Cost Accounting (Akuntansi Biaya) adalah menyediakan informasi untuk management accounting dan financial accounting dengan cara mengukur dan melaporkan informasi financial dan non-financial yang terkait dengan cost of acquiring and utilizing resources dalam organisasi.

MERGER

noreply@blogger.com (sourceSite) — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 07:46:00 +0000

DASAR PEMIKIRAN DIBALIK MERGER

Sinergi
Motivasi utama di balik kebanyakan merger adalah untuk meningkatkan nilai dari perusahaan gabungan. Jika perusahaan A dan B bergabung untuk membentuk perusahaan C, dan jika nilai C melebihi nilai dari A dan dan B jika dilihat secara terpisah, maka sinergi tersebut dapat dikatakan telah terjadi.

Pertimbangan Pajak
Pertimbangan pajak telah mendorong pula terjadinya sejumlah merger. Sebagai contoh, perusahaan yang menguntungkan dan berada di rentang pajak tertinggi dapat mengakuisisi sebuah perusahaan yang memiliki akumulasi kerugian pajak dalam jumlah besar. Kerugian secara pajak ini selanjutnya dapat langsung diubah menjadi penghematan pajak daripada dibawa ke tahun berikutnya dan digunakan di maa mendatang. Jika perusahaan mengalami kekurangan peluang investasi internal jika dibandingkan dengan arus kas bebas yang tersedia, maka perusahaan dapat (membayarkan dividen tambahan, (2) berinvestasi pada sekuritas, (3) membeli kembali sahamnya, atau (4) membeli perusahaan lain.

Pembelian Aktiva di Bawah Biaya Penggantinya
Terkadang perusahaan akan dipandang sebagai kandidat akuisisi karena biaya penggantian aktivanya jauh lebih tinggi daripada nilai pasarnya. Sebagai contoh, di awal tahun 1980-an, perusahaan minyak dapat membeli cadangan dengan harga lebih murah melalui pembelian perusahaan minyak lainnya daripada melakukan pengeboran eksplorasi.

Diversifikasi
Para manajer sering kali menyebutkan diversifikasi sebagai salah satu alasan dari merger. Mereka berpendapat bahwa diversifikasi akan membantu menstabilisasi keuntungan perusahaan dan akibatnya memberikan keuntungan bagi para pemiliknya. Stabilisasi keuntungan sudah pasti merupakan hal yang menguntungkan bagi para karyawan, pemasok dan pelanggan, namun dari sudut pandang pemegang saham, stabilisasi merupakan nilai yang kurang pasti.

Insentif Pribadi Manajer
Ekonom keuangan suka berpendapat bahwa keputusan bisnis hanya didasarkan atas pertimbangan ekonomi saja, khususnya dalam hal memaksimalkan nilai sebuah perusahaan. Namun, banyak keputusan bisnis sebetulnya lebih didasarkan pada motivasi pribadi manajer daripada pada analisis ekonomi.
Petimbangan pribadi akan dapat menghalangi sekaligus juga dapat memotivasi merger. Setelah sebagian besar pengambilalihan, sebagian manajer dari perusahaan yang diakusisi kehilangan pekerjaan mereka, atau paling tidak otonomi yang mereka miliki. Karenanya, para manajer yang memiliki kurang dari 51% saham perusahaan mereka mencoba mencarai cara yang akan memperkecil peluang erjadinya pengambilalihan. Merger defensif seperti itu sangat sukar untuk dipertahankan berdasarkan alasan ekonomi.

Nilai Residu
Perusahaan dapat dinilai dari nilai bukunya, nilai ekonominya, maupun nilai penggantinya. Baru-baru ini, para spesialis pengambilalihan perusahaan telah mulai mengakui nilain residu sebagai salah satu basis lain untuk melakukan valuasi.

JENIS MERGER
Terdapat empat jenis merger:
Merger horisontal, terjadi ketika sebuah perusahaan bergabung dengan perusahaan lain di dalam lini bisnis yang sama.

Merger vertikal, berupa akuisisi sebuah perusahaan dengan salah satu pemasok atau pelanggannya.
Merger kongenerik akan melibatkan perusahaan-perusahaan yang saling berhubungan tetapi bukan merupakan produsen dari sebuah produk yang sama atau perusahaan yang memiliki hubungan pemasok-produsen.
Merger konglomerat, terjadi ketika perusahaan-perusahaan yang tidak saling berhubungan bergabung.

TINGKAT AKTIVITAS MERGER
Lima ”gelombang merger” besar telah terjadi di Amerika Serikat. Gelombang pertama terjadi di akhir tahun 1800-an, ketika terjadi konsolidasi dalam industri minyak, baja, tembakau, dan industri dasar lainnya. Gelombang kedua terjadi pada tahun 1920-an, ketika naiknya bursa saham membantu para promotor keuangan mengonsolidasi perusahaan-perusahaan di sejumlah industri, termasuk di antaranya fasilitas umum, komunikasi, dan kendaraan bermotor.
Gelombang ketiga terjadi pada 1960-an, ketika merger konglomerat terjadi dimana-mana. Keempat terjadi pada 1980-an, ketika perusahaan-perusahaan LBO dan perusahaan lain mulai menggunakan obligasi sampah untuk mendanai berbagai jenis akuisisi. Gelombang kelima, yang berhubungan dengan aliansi strategis yang dirancang untuk memungkinkan perusahaan berkompetisi secara lebih baik di dalam perekonomian global, masih terus berlanjut hingga saat ini.

PENGAMBIL ALIHAN PAKSA VS PENGAMBIL ALIHAN BERSAHABAT
Menurut konvensi yang ada, kita menyebut perusahaan yang ingin mengakuisisi perusahaan lain sebagai perusahaan pengakusisi dan perusahaan yang ingin diakuisisi sebagai perusahaan sasaran.
Setelah perusahaan pengakuisisi mengidentifikasi calon sasaran, maka perusahaan tersebut harus (1) menentukan harga atau rentang harga yang pantas, dan (2) untuk sementara menentukan persyaratan pembayaran—apakah perusahaan akan menawarkan uang tunai, saham biasa, obligasi, atau kombinasi antara keduanya? Jika tercapai suatu kesepakatan, maka kedua kelompok manajemen akan mengeluarkan pernyataan kepada masing-masing pemegang sahamnya yang menunjukkan bahwa mereka menyetujui merger, dan manajemen perusahaan sasaran akan memberikan rekomendasi kepada para pemegang sahamnya bahwa mereka telah menyetujui merger tersebut. Biasanya, para pemegang saham akan diminta untuk menwarkan saham mereka kepada sebuah lembaga keuangan yang telah ditunjuk, berikut surat kuasa yang telah ditandatangani yang memindahkan kepemilikan atas saham tersebut kepada perusahaan pengakuisisi. Cara ini disebut merger bersahabat.
Namun seringkali, manajmen perusahaan sasaran akan menolak merger. Mereka mungkin merasa bahwa harga yang ditawarkan terlalu rendah atau mungkin juga mereka berusaha mempertahankan pekerjaan mereka. Apapun kondisinya, penawaran perusahaan pengakuisisi bersifat paksa daripada bersahabat.

REGULASI MERGER
Sebelum pertengahan 1960-an, akuisisi secara bersahabat pada umumnya terjadi dalam bentuk merger melalui pertukaran saham sederhana, dan perebutan mandat adalah senjata utama yang digunakan dalam perang atas pengendalian secara paksa. Namun, pertengahan tahun 1960-an para penjarah perusahaan mulkai beroperasi dengan cara berbeda. Pertama, menjalani perebutan mandat akan membutuhkan waktu yang lama—para penjarah tersebut harus terlebih dahulu meminta daftar pemegang saham perusahaan sasaran, ditolak, dan kemudian berusaha mendapatkan surat perintah pengadilan yang memaksa menajemen menyerahkan daftar tersebut.
Kemudian para penjarah mulai berpikir bahwa jika kita membawa keputusan langsung kepada sasaran dengan cepat, sebelum manajemen sempat mengambil tindakan pencegahan, maka hal tersebut tentu akan meningkatkan peluang keberhasilan. Hal tersebut kemudian menyebabkan penjarah berpaling dari perebutan mandat ke pengajuan penawaran, yang memilki waktu respon jauh lebih singkat.
Hal ini tidak adil bagi perusahaan sasaran sehingga akhirnya Kongres mengeluarkan Undang-undang Williams (Williams Act) pada tahun 1968. Peraturan ini memiliki dua tujuan: (1) mengatur cara perusahaan pengakuisisi dapat menstrukturisasi pengajuan penawaran, dan (2) memaksa perusahaan pengakuisisi mengunkapkan lebih banyak informasi tentang penwaran yang diberikan.

ANALISIS MERGER
Secara teori, analisis merger sebenarnya cukup sederhana. Peusahaan pengakuisisi hanya perlu melakukan suatu analisis untuk menilai perusahaan sasaran dan kemudian menentukan apakah perusahaan sasaran dapat dibeli pada nilai tersebut, atau, yang lebih disukai lagi, lebih rendah dari estimasi nilai tersebut.

MENILAI PERUSAHAAN SASARAN
Dalam menilai perusahaan sasaran, terdapat beberapa metodologi yang dapat digunakan, namun, kita membatasi pembahasan ini hanya pada dua metodologi: (1) pendekatan arus kas terdiskonto, dan (2) metode perkalian pasar.

Analisis Arus Kas Terdiskonto

Pendekatan arus kas terdiskonto dalam menilai suatu bisnis akan melibatkan penerapan prosedur-prosedur penganggaran modal atau keseluruhan perusahaan daripada hanya satu proyek saja. Untuk menerapkan metode ini, ada dua hal yang penting dibutuhkan: (1) laporan proforma yang meramalkan peningkatan arus kas bebas sebagai akibat dari merger, dan (2) suatu tingkat diskonto, atau biaya modal, yang akan diterapkan pada proyeksi arus kas.
Laporan arus kas pro forma. Mendapatkan ramalan arus kas pascamerger yang akurat sejauh ini merupakan tugas penting dalam pendekatan DCF. Dalam suatu merger keuangan murni, dimana tidak diharapkan tejadi suatu sinergi, peningkatan arus kas pascamerger sebenarnya adalah ekspektasi arus kas dari perusahaan sasaran. Namun, dalam merger operasi, dimana operasi kedua perusahaan akan diintegerasikan, meramalkan arus kas di masa mendatang adalah suatu hal yang lebih sulit dilakukan.
Mengestimasikan tingkat diskonto. Jumlah total arus kas bersih adalah setelah bunga dan pajak, sehingga akan mencerminkan ekuitas. Karena itu, arus kas tersebut seharusnya didiskontokan oleh biaya ekuitas dan bukannya dari keseluruhan biaya modal. Lebih jauh, tingkat diskonto yang digunakan seharusnya mencerminkan tingkat risiko dari arus kas di dalam tabel.

Analisis Perkalian Pasar

Metode kedua dalam menilai perusahaan sasaran adalah analisis perkalian pasar (multiple market analysis) yaitu suatu metode penilaian sebuah perusahaan sasaran yang menerapkan perkalian yang ditentukan oleh pasar pada laba bersih, laba per lembar saham, penjualan, nilai buku, dan seterusnya.

Menentukan Harga Penawaran
Metode dengan menentukan harga penawaran adalah dengan melihat jumlah tertinggi yang dapat dibayarkan, yang mencerminkan keuntungan sinergis yang diharapkan dari merger, berikut beberapa hal yang perlu dicatat :

Jika terdapat keuntungan sinergis, penawaran maksimum yang diberikan akan sama dengan nilai perusahaan saat ini.
Semakin besar keuntungan sinergis, maka semakin besar kemungkinan merger tersebut dilaksanakan.
Masalah mengenai membagi keuntungan sinergis juga merupakan hal yang sangat penting, kedua belah pihak menginginkan mendapat jumlah sebesar mungkin.
Harga aktual akan tergantung beberapa faktor, termasuk apakah perusahaan menawarkan untuk membayar dalam bentuk tunai atau sekuritas, keahlian negosiasi diantara kedua tim manajemen dan yang paling penting, posisi penawaran kedua belah pihak yang ditentukan oleh kondisi ekonomi mendasar dari masing-masing perusahaan
Perusahaan akan ingin merahasiakan penawaran maksimumnya dan perusahaan merencanakan strategi penawaran secara hati-hati dan konsisten dengan situasi. Perusahaan dapat memberikan penawaran antisipasi yang tinggi dengan harapan dapat menakut-nakuti penawaran saingan atau penolakan manajemen.
Pengendalian Pasca Merger
Situsai pengendalian merupakan hal yang vital dalam suatu analisis merger. Pertama pertimbangkanlah sebuah situasi dimana sebuah perusahaan kecil dikelola oleh pemiliknya dijual kepada suatu kepentingan yang lebih besar.

KEPAILITAN

noreply@blogger.com (sourceSite) — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 07:42:00 +0000

Sejak krisis moneter melanda Indonesia, yaitu sekitar tahun 1997 banyak perusahaan-perusahaan besar mengalami kesulitan dalam bidang keuangan. Hal ini mengakibatkan banyak perusahaan-perusahaan tersebut mengalami kebangkrutan dan terpaksa gulung tikar. Keadaan ini sebenarnya adalah merupakan suatu keadaan yang tidak diinginkan oleh semua pihak, akan tetapi karena krisis ekonomi yang terjadi di negara kita cukup parah sehingga keadaan ini tidak dapat lagi dihindarkan.

Pailit merupakan salah satu cara yang digunakan baik oleh kreditur maupun oleh debitur dalam menyelesaikan “masalah” mereka, karena hakekat kepailitan bagi debitur adalah untuk menghindari kesewenang-wenangan dari pihak kreditur, sedangkan hakikat kepailitan bagi kreditur adalah untuk mendapatkan kepastian pembayaran. Akibat dari kepailitan bagi debitur dan harta kekayaannya adalah harta kekayaan debitur akan disita untuk dijual, dan debitur tidak berhak lagi mengelola harta kekayaan tersebut, karena pengelolaanya akan dilakukan oleh kurator. Arti kepailitan sendiri menurut Undang-Undang Nomor 37 Tahun 2004 yaitu :
“suatu penyitaan umum atas seluruh harta (aset) yang pengurusan dan pemberesannya dilakukan pleh kurator dibawah pengawasan hakim pengawassebagaimana diatur dalam Undang-Undang.”

Kepailitan terjadi ketika debitur tidak mampu lagi membayar hutangnya, adapun ketentuan lengkap tentang syarat kepailitan diatur dalam Pasal 1 Undang-Undang Nomor 4 Tahun 1998, yaitu :
“Debitur yang mempunyai dua atau lebih bkreditur dan tidak membayar sedikitnya satu hutang yang telah jatuh tempo dan dapat ditagih, dinyatakan pailit dengan putusan pengadilan yang berwenang sebagaimana dimaksud dalam pasal 2, baik atas permintaan sendiri maupun atas permintaan seorang atau lebih krediturnya.”

Syarat Yuridis untuk kepailitan adalah :

Adanya hutang
Minimal satu hutang sudah jatuh tempo dan dapat ditagih
Adanya debitur
Adanya kreditur (lebih dari satu)
Permohonan peryataan pailit
Pernyataan pailit oleh Pengadilan Niaga

Adapun para pihak yang dapat melakukan permintaan kepailitan adalah :

Debitur
Kreditur
Kejaksaan demi kepentingan umum
Bank Indonesia
Badan Pengawas Pasar Modal

Langkah-langkah yang ada dalam kepailitan ada 9 langkah, yaitu :

Permohonan pailit, syarat permohonan pailit telah diatur dalam UU No. 4 Tahun 1998, seperti apa yang telah ditulis diatas.
Keputusan pailit berkekuatan tetap, jangka waktu permohonan pailit sampai sampai keputusan pailit berkekuatan tetap adalah 90 hari.
Rapat verifikasi, adalah rapat pendaftaran utang-piutang, pada langkah ini dilakukan pendataan berapa jumlah utang dan piutangyang dimiliki oleh debitur. Verifikasi utang merupakan tahap yang paling penting dalam kepailitan karena akan ditentukan urutan pertimbangan hak dari masing-masing kreditur. Rapat verifikasi dipimpin oleh hakim pengawas dan dihadiri oleh : (a) Panitera (sebagai pencatat), (b) Debitur(tidak boleh diwakilkan karena nanti debitur harus menjelaskan kalau nanti terjadi perbedaan pendapat tentang jumlah tagihan, (c) Kreditur atau kuasanya (jika berhalangan untuk hadir tidak apa-apa, nantinya mengikuti hasil rapat), (d) Kurator (harus hadir karena merupakan pengelola aset).
Perdamaian, jika perdamaian diterima maka proses kepailitan berakhir, jika tidak maka akan dilanjutkan ke proses selanjutnya. Proses perdamaian selalu diupayakan dan diagendakan. Ada beberapa perbedaan antara perdamaian yang terjadi dalam proses kepailitan dengan perdamaian yang biasa. Perdamaian dalam proses kepailitan meliputi : (a)mengikat semua kreditur kecuali kreditur separatis, karena kreditur separatis telah dijamin tersendiri dengan benda jaminan yang terpisah dengan harta pailit umumnya. (b)terikat formalitas, (c) ratifikasi dalam sidang homologasi, (d)jika pengadilan niaga menolak adanya hukum kasasi, (e) ada kekuatan eksekutorial, apa yang tertera dalam perdamaian, pelaksanaanya dapat dilakukan secara paksa. Tahap-tahap dalam proses perdamaian antara lain : (a) pengajuan usul perdamaian, (b) pengumuman usulan perdamaian, (c) rapat pengambilan keputusan, (d) sidang homologasi, (e) upaya hukum kasasi, (f) rehabilitasi.
Homologasi akur, yaitu permintaan pengesahan oleh Pengadilan Niaga, jika proses perdamaian diterima.
Insolvensi, yaitu suatu keadaan dimana debitur dinyatakan benar-benar tidak mampu membayar, atau dengan kata lain harta debitur lebih sedikit jumlahnya dengan hutangnya. Hal tentang insolvensi ini sangat menentukan nasib debitur, apakah akan ada eksekusi atau terjadi restrukturisasi hutang dengan damai. Saat terjadinya insolvensi (pasal 178 UUK) yaitu: (a) saat verifikasi tidak ditawarkan perdamaian, (b)penawaran perdamaian ditolak, (c) pengesahan perdamaian ditolak oleh hakim. Dengan adanya insolvensi maka harta pailit segera dieksekusi dan dibagi kepada para kreditur.
Pemberesan/likuidasi, yaitu ppenjualan harta kekayaan debitur pailit, yang dibagikan kepad kreditur konkuren, setelah dikurangi biaya-biaya.
Rehabilitasi, yaitu suatu usaha pemulihan nama baik kreditur, akan tetapi dengan catatan jika proses perdamaian diterima, karena jika perdamaian ditolak maka rehabilitasi tidak ada. Syarat rehabilitsi adalah : telah terjadi perdamaian, telah terjadi pembayaran utang secara penuh.

Kepailitan berakhir.

Dalam suatu kepailitan peran seorang kurator amat sangatlah penting karena dia bertindak sebagai pengelola aset. Beberapa hal yang harus diperhatikan oleh kurator dalam menjalankan tugasnya antara lain :

Kewenangan hukum
Pertimbangan ekonomi dan bisnis berkaitan dengan likuidasi aset
Keterlibatan pihak lain (hakim pengawas)
Prosedur yang berkaitan dengan tindakan hukum tertentu (rapat verifikasi)
Kebiasaan dan tatacara yang layak menurut hukum dalam tindakan tertentu

Dalam menjalankan kewenangannya, kurator juga mempunyai tanggungjawab hukum. Salah satu pasal yang mengatur tentang tanggungjawab hukum kurator dalam UUK adalah dalam pasal 72 yang menyebutkan :
“kurator bertanggungjawab terhadap kesalahan dan kelalaiannya dalam melaksanakan tugas pengurusan dan atau pemberesan yang menyebabkan kerugian terhadap harta pailit”
Berdasarkan pasal 72 UUK tersebut maka terhadap kurator dapat dibebani pertanggungjawaban pribadi. Jika akibat kesalahan atau kelalaiannya menimbulkan kerugian bagi pihak-pihak yang berkepentingan terhadap harta pailit, yaitu terutama kreditur konkuren. Jadi kurator dapat digugat untuk membayar ganti kerugian.

Akibat hukum dari adanya putusan pailit adalah :

Berlaku dibidang harta kekayaan
Penyitaan umum seluruh aset debitur
Debitur perseorangan, termasuk suami atau istri
Debitur kena cekal (tidak boleh meninggalkan domisili)
Ketentuan pidana tetap berlaku
Keputusan pailit by the operation of law
Barang berharga disimpan kurator
Uang tunai disimpan di bank
Tidak boleh menjadi direktur atau komisaris pada perusahaan lain.

HAK CIPTA

noreply@blogger.com (sourceSite) — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 07:38:00 +0000

Hak cipta adalah hak eksekutif bagi pencipta maupun penerima hak untuk mengumumkan atau memperbanyak ciptaannya maupun memberi izin untuk itu dengan tidak mengurangi pembatasan-pembatasan menurut perundang-undangan yang berlaku.

Yang dimaksud dengan pencipta adalah : Seseorang atau beberapa orang secara bersama-sama yang atas inspirasinya lahir suatu ciptaan berdasarkan kemampuan pikiran, imajinasi, kecakatan, keterampilan atau keahlian yang dituangkan dalam bentuk yang khas dan bersifat pribadi.

PEMEGANG HAK CIPTA DAN CIPTAAN

Pemegang hak cipta adalah pencipta sebagai pemilik hak cipta atau pihak yang menerima hak tersebut dari pencipta atau pihak lain yang menerima lebih lanjut hak dari pihak tersebut di atas.
Ciptaan adalah hasil setiap karya pencipta yang menunjukkan keasliannya dalam lapangan ilmu pengetahuan, seni atau sastra.
Perlindungan suatu ciptaan timbul secara otomatis sejak ciptaan itu diwujudkan dalam bentuk yang nyata. Pendaftaran ciptaan tidak merupakan suatu keajaiban untuk mendapatkan hak cipta. Namun demikian, pencipta maupun pemegang hak cipta yang mendaftarkan ciptaannya akan mendapatkan surat pendaftaran ciptaan yang dapat dijadikan sebagai alat bukti awal di peradilan apabila timbul sengketa dikemudian hari terhadap ciptaan tersebut

DASAR PERLINDUNGAN HAK CIPTA
Undang-undang Hak Cipta (UUHC) pertama kali diatur dalam undang-undang No. 6 tahun 1982 tentang hak cipta. Kemudian diubah dengan undang-undang no. 7 tahun 1987. pada tahun 1997 diubah lagi dengan undang-undang no. 12 tahun 1997. di tahun 2002, UUHC kembali mengalami perubahan dan diatur dalam undang-undang no. 19 tahun 2002. beberapa peraturan pelaksanaan yang masih berlaku yaitu :

Peraturan Pemerintah RI no. 14 tahun 1986 Jo Peraturan pemerintah RI no. 7 1989 tentang Dewan Hak Cipta
Peraturan pemerintah RI no. 1 tahun 1989 tentang penerjemahan dan/atau perbanyakan ciptaan untuk kepentingan pendidikan, ilmu pengetahuan, penelitian dan pengembangan.
Peraturan Menteri Kehakiman RI no. M.01-HC.03.01 tahun 1987 tentang pendaftaran hak cipta
Keputusan Menteri Kehakiman RI no. M.04.PW.07.03 tahun 1988 tentang penyelidikan hak cipta

HAK MORAL DAN HAK EKONOMI

Hak moral adalah hak yang melekat pada diri pencipta atau pelaku yang tidak dapat dihilangkan atau dihapus dengan alasan apapun, walaupun hak cipta atau hak terkait telah dialihkan.
Hak ekonomi adalah hak-hak untuk mendapatkan manfaat ekonomi atas ciptaan serta produk hak terkait.
Hak terkait adalah hak eksekutif yang berkaitan dengan hak cipta yaitu hak eksekutif bagi pelaku untuk memperbanyak atau menyiarkan petunjuknya; bagi produser rekaman suara untuk memperbanyak atau menyewakan karya rekaman suara atau rekaman bunyinya; dan bagi lembaga penyiaran untuk membuat, memperbanyak atau menyiarkan karya siarannya

PELANGGARAN HAK CIPTA

Suatu perbuatan yang dikatakan sebagai suatu pelanggaran hak cipta apabila perbuatan tersebut melanggar hak eksekutif pencipta atau pemegang hak cipta.
Perbuatan yang tidak dianggap sebagai pelanggaran hak cipta :

Pengumuman dan/atau perbanyakan lambang negara dan lagu kebangsaaan menurut sifatnya yang asli
Pengumuman dan/atau perbanyakan segala sesuatu yang diumumkan dan/atau diperbanyak oleh atau atas nama pemerintah, kecuali jika hak cipta itu dinyatakan dilindungi, baik dengan peraturan undang-undang maupun dengan pernyataan pada ciptaan itu sendiri atau ketika ciptaan itu diumumkan dan/atau diperbanyak
Pengambilan berita aktual seluruhnya maupun sebagian dari kantor berita, lembaga penyiaran dan surat kabar atau sumber sejenis lain, dengan ketentuan sumbernya harus disebutkan secara lengkap.

KETENTUAN PIDANA DALAM UNDANG-UNDANG HAK CIPTA

Tindak pidana bidang hak cipta dikategorikan sebagai tindak kejahatan dan ancaman pidanannya diatur dalam pasal 77 yang berbunyi :

Barang siapa dengan sengaja menyiarkan, memamerkan, atau menjual kepada umum suatu ciptaan atau barang hasil pelanggaran hak cipta atau hak terkait sebagai mana dimaksud (1) dipidana dengan pidana penjara paling lama 5 (lima) tahun dan/atau denda paling banyak Rp. 500.000.000, 00 (lima ratus juta rupiah)
Barang siapa dengan sengaja dan tanpa hak memperbanyak penggunaan untuk kepentingan komersial suatu program komputer dipidana dengan pidana penjara paling lama 5 (lima) tahun dan/atau denda paling banyak Rp. 500.000.000, 00 (lima ratus juta rupiah)
dan lain-lain

KESIMPULAN

Bahwa hak cipta di Indonesia sudah secara jelas di dalam UU – HC baik secara nasional maupun internasional
Untuk mendukung pelaksanaan UU tersebut maka ada beberapa hal yang sebaiknya dilakukan, yaitu :

Pemerintah sebaiknya harus lebih banyak melakukan sosialisasi dan punyuluhan kepada pihak-pihak yang bersangkutan dan masyarakat luas.
Aparat hukum harus lebih tegas dan bersungguh-sungguh dalam menindak para pelanggar hak cipta tanpa pandang bulu.
Masyarakat harus ikut berperan aktif dalam mendukung pelaksanaan UU Hak Cipta dan pemberantasan pelanggaran hak cipta.

PERAN MANAJEMEN KEUANGAN

noreply@blogger.com (sourceSite) — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 07:34:00 +0000

Manajemen keuangan merupakan menajemen terhadap fungsi-fungsi keuangan. Fungsi-fungsi keuangan tersebut meliputi begaimana memperoleh dana (raising of fund) dan bagaimana menggunakan dana tersebut (allocation of fund). Manajer keuangan berkepentingan dengan penentuan jumlah aktiva yang layak dari investasi pada berbagai aktiva dan memilih sumber-sumber dana untuk membelanjai aktiva tersebut. Untuk memperoleh dana, manajer keuangan bisa memperolehnya dari dalam maupun luar perusahaan. Sumber dari luar perusahaan berasal dari pasar modal, bisa berbentuk hutang atau modal sendiri.

Manajemen keuangan dapat didefinisikan dari tugas dan tanggung jawab manajer keuangan. Tugas pokok manajemen keuangan antara lain meliputi keputusan berinvestasi, pembiayaan kegiatan usaha dan pembagian deviden suatu perusahan, dengan demikian tugas manajer keuangan adalah merencanakan untuk memaksimumkan nilai perusahaan. Kegiatan penting lainnya yang harus dilakukan manajer keuangan menyangkut empat aspek yaitu :

Manajer keuangan harus bekerjasama dengan para manajer lainnya yang bertanggung jawab atas perencanaan umum perusahaan.
Manajer kuangan harus memusatkan perhatian pada berbagai keputusan investasi dan pembiayaan, dan berbagai hal yang berkaitan dengannya
Manajer keuangan harus bekerjasama dengan para manajer di perusahaan agar perusahaan dapat beroperasi seefisien mungkin
Manajer keuangan harus mampu menghubungkan perusahaan dengan pasar keuangan, dimana perusahaan dapat memperoleh dana dan surat berharga perusahaan dapat diperdagangkan.

Aspek penting lain dari tujuan perusahaan dan tujuan manajemen keuangan adalah pertimbangan terhadap tanggung jawab sosial yang dapat dilihat dari empat segi yaitu :

Jika manajemen keuangan menuju pada memeksimalisasi harga saham, maka diperlukan manajemen yang baik dan efisien sesuai dengan permintaan konsumen.
Perusahaan yang berhasil selalu menempatkan efisiensi dan inovasi sebagai prioritas, sehingga menghasilkan produk baru, penemuan teknologi baru dan perluasan lapangan pekerjaan
Faktor-faktor luar seperti pencemaran lingkungan, jaminan keamanan produk dan keselamatan kerja menjadi lebih penting untuk dipertimbangkan. Fluktuasi disemua tingkat kegiatan bisnis dan perubahan-perubahan yang terjadi pada kondisi pasar keuangan merupakan aspek penting dari lingkungan luar.
Kerjasama antara industri dan pemerintah sangat diperlukan untuk menciptakan peraturan yang mengatur tentang perilaku perusahaan, dan sebaliknya perusahaan mematuhi peraturan tersebut. Tujuan perusahaan pada dasarnya adalah memeksimumkan nilai perusahaan dengan pertimbangan teknis.

Pada dasarnya tujuan manajemen keuangan adalah memaksimumkan nilai perusahaan. Akan tetapi dibalik tujuan tersebut masih terdapat konflik antara pemilik perusahaan dengan penyedia dana sebagai kreditur. Jika perusahaan berjalan lancar, maka nilai saham perusahaan akan meningkat, sedangkan nilai hutang perusahaan dalam bentuk obligasi tidak terpengaruh sama sekali. Jadi dapat disimpulkan bahwa nilai dari saham kepemilikan bisa merupakan indeks yang tepat untuk mengukur tingkat efektifitias perusahaan. Berdasarkan alasan itulah, maka tujuan manajemen keuangan dinyatakan dalam bentuk maksimalisasi nilai saham kepemilikan perusahaan, atau memaksimalisasikan harga saham. Tujuan memaksimumkan harga saham tidak berarti bahwa para manajer harus berupaya mencari kenaikan nilai saham dengan mengorbankan para pemegang obligasi.

PENGAMBILAN KEPUTUSAN KONSUMEN

noreply@blogger.com (sourceSite) — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 07:29:00 +0000

Keputusan konsumen untuk membeli atau tidak membeli suatu produk atau jasa merupakan saat yang penting bagi pemasar. Keputusan ini dapat menandai apakah suatu strategi pemasaran telah cukup bijaksana, berwawasan luas, dan efektif, atau apakah kurang baik direncanakan atau keliru menetapkan sasaran. Keputusan merupakan seleksi terhadap dua pilihan alternative atau lebih.

Riset konsumen eksperimental mengungkapkan bahwa menyediakan pilihan bagi konsumen ketika sesungguhnya tidak ada satu pun pilihan, dapat dijadikan strategi bisnis yang tepat, strategi tersebut dapat meningkatkan penjualan dalam jumlah yang sangat besar.

TINGKAT PENGAMBILAN KEPUTUSAN KONSUMEN
Terdapat tiga tingkat pengambilan keputusan konsumen spesifik, yaitu:

Pemecahan masalah yang luas, konsumen membutuhkan berbagai informasi untuk menetapkan serangkaian kriteria yang berguna menilai merek-merek tertentu dan banyak informasi yang sesuai mengenai setiap merek yang akan dipertimbangkan.
Pemecahan masalah yang terbatas, konsumen tetal menetapkan criteria dasar untuk menilai kategori produk dan berbagai merek dalam kategori tersebut.
Perilaku sebagai respon yang rutin, konsumen telah memepunyai beberapa pengalaman mengenai kategori produk dan serangkaian kriteria yang ditetapkan dengan baik untuk menilai berbagai merek yang sedang mereka pertimbangkan.

MODEL KEPUTUSAN: EMPAT PANDANGAN MENGENAI PENGAMBILAN KEPUTUSAN KONSUMEN
Teori-teori pengambilan keputusan konsumen bervariasi, tergantung kepada asumsi peneliti mengenai sifat-sifat manusia. Terdapat empat pandangan atas pengambilan keputusan konsumen:

Pandangan ekonomi, konsumen sering dianggap sebagai pengambil keputusan yang rasional.
Pandangan pasif, menggambarkan konsumen sebagai orang yang pada dasarnya tunduk pada kepentingan melayani diri dan usaha promosi para pemasar. Para konsumen dianggap sebagai pembeli yang menurutkan kata hati dan irasional.
Pandangan kognitif, menggambarkan konsumen berada diantara pandangan ekonomi dan pandangan pasif yang ekstrim, yang tidak (atau tidak dapat) memperoleh pengetahuan yang mutlak mengenai semua alternatif produk yang tersedia dan karena itu tidak dapat mengambil keputusan yang sempurna, namun secara aktif mencari informasi dan berusaha mengambil keputusan yang memuaskan.
Pandangan emosional, mengambil keputusan yang emosional atau impulsive (menurutkan desakan hati).

MODEL PENGAMBILAN KEPUTUSAN KONSUMEN
Model dalam pengambilan keputusan mempunyai tiga komponen utama yaitu:

Masukan (input), komponen ini mempunyai berbagai pengaruh luar yang berlaku sebagai sumber informasi mengenai produk tertentu dan mempengaruhi nilai-nilai, sikap dan perilaku konsumen yang berkaitan dengan produk. Yang utama dalam faktor masukan ini adalah berbagai kegiatan bauran pemasaran dan pengaruh sosiobudaya di luar pemasaran.
Proses, komponen ini berhubungan dengan cara konsumen mengambil keputusan. Tindakan pengambilan keputusan konsumen terdiri dari tiga tahap, yaitu: (a) Pengenalan kebutuhan, (b) Penelitian sebelum pembelian, dan (c) Penilaian berbagai alternatif. Faktor-faktor yang dapat meningkatkan pencarian informasi sebelum pembelian, yaitu: (a) Faktor-faktor produk (lamanya waktu antar pembelian, perubahan model produk, perubahan harga, jumlah pembelian, harga yang tinggi, merk alternatif yang banyak, berbagai macam keistimewaan), (b) Faktor situasi (pengalaman, dapat diterima secara sosial, pertimbangan yang berhubungan dengan nilai), dan (c) Faktor produk (karakteristik demografis konsumen, kepribadian). Berbagai isu dalam mengevaluasi alternative, yaitu: (a) Rangkaian merek yang diminati, mengacu pada merk-merk khusus yang dipertimbangkan konsumen dalam melakukan pembelian dalam kategori produk tertentu, (b) Kriteria yang Dipakai untuk Mengevaluasi Merek, merupakan rangkaian merk yang mereka minati biasanya dinyatakan dari sudut sifat-sifat produk yang penting, (c)Consumer Desicion Rules, merupakan prosedur yang digunakan oleh konsumen untuk memudahkan pemilihan merk, (d) Gaya Hidup sebagai Suatu Strategi Pengambilan Keputusan Konsumen, berpengaruh pada berbagai perilaku khusus konsumen sehari-hari. (e) Incomplete Information and Noncomparable Alternatives, dalam berbagai situasi pilihan para konsumen menghadapi informasi yang tidak lengkap sebagaid asar keputusan dan harus menggunakan berbagai strategi alternative untuk mengatasi unsur-unsur yang hilang, (e) Series of Decisions (Serangkaian Keputusan), dalam suatu pembelian dapat mencakup sejumlah keputusan. (f) Aturan Pengambilan Keputusan dan Strategi Pemasaran, pengertian mengenai kaidah keputusan mana yang akan digunakan konsumen dalam memilih produk atau jasa tertentu sangat berguna bagi pemasar yang berkepentingan untuk merumuskan program promosi, (g) Visi Konsumsi, sebagai gambaran pengambilan keputusan yang tidak ortodoks, tetapi mungkin sekali akurat dalam situasi kurangnya pengalaman konsumen dan tidak terstrukturnya maslah dengan baik, maupun dalam situasi yang diliputi emosi yang dalam.
Keluaran (output), komponen ini menyangkut dua kegiatan pasca pembelian yang berhubungan erat: perilaku pembelian dan penilaian pasca pembelian. Tujuan dari dua kegiatan ini adalah untuk meningkatkan kepuasan konsumen terhadap pembeliannya.

PERILAKU KONSUMEN UNTUK MEMBERI HADIAH
Perilaku memberi hadiah didefinisikan sebagai proses pertukaran hadiah yang terjadi antara pemberi dan penerima. Proses pertukaran hadiah merupakan bagian perilaku konsumen yang penting. Terdapat lima jenis pemberian hadiah dan penerimaan hadiah, yaitu:

Pemberian hadiah antar kelompok (sebuah kelompok memberikan hadiah kepada kelompok lain),
Pemberian hadiah antar kategori (seorang individu memberikan hadiah kepada sebuah kelompok atau sebuah kelompok memberikan hadiah kepada seorang individu),
Pemberian hadiah di dalam kelompok (sebuah kelompok memberikan hadiah kepada dirinya sendiri atau kepad para anggotanya),
Pemberian hadiah antar perorangan (seorang individu memberikan hadiah kepada individu lain), dan
Pemberian hadian pada diri sendiri (hadiah untuk diri sendiri).

HAL-HAL DI LUAR KEPUTUSAN: MENGKONSUMSI DAN MEMILIKI
Perilaku konsumen tidak hanya mengambil keputusan pembelian atau perbuatan membeli, ia juga mencakup berbagai pengalaman yang dihubungkan dengan pemakaian atau konsumsi berbagai produk dan jasa. Pengalaman memakai produk dan jasa maupun perasaan senang yang berasaldari memiliki, mengumpulkan atau mengkonsumsi barang-barang dan berbagai pengalaman menyumbang kepada kepuasan konsumen dan kualitas hidup secara keseluruhan.

Pemasaran berdasarkan hubungan menjadi demikian penting karena konsumen sekarang ini kurang setia dibandingkan masa lalu, hal ini disebabkan enam kekuatan utama: berlimpahnya pilihan, tersedianya informasi, perasaan berhak, pengkomoditian, ketidakkokohan (masalah keuangan konsumen menurunkan kesetiaan) dan kekurangan waktu (tidak cukup waktu untuk setia).

Pemasaran berdasarkan hubungan mempengaruhi keputusan konsumen dan kepuasan konsumsi mereka. Pemasaran berdasarkan hubungan adalah hal-hal yang berhubungan dengan membangun kepercayaan dan memegang janji yang dibuat oleh para konsumen. Dalam hal ini digunakan untuk mengembangkan ikatan jangka panjang dengan para pelanggan dengan membuat mereka merasa istimewa dan memberikan berbagai pelayanan khusus kepada mereka.

Referensi:
Schiffman, L.G., & Kanuk, L.L. 2007. Consumer Behaviour, 9th ed. New Jersey, Pearson Prentice Hall.

KOMUNIKASI DAN PERILAKU KONSUMEN

noreply@blogger.com (sourceSite) — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 07:27:00 +0000

Komunikasi merupakan alat unik yang digunakan para pemasar untuk membujuk para konsumen agar bertindak menurut cara yang diinginkan. Komunikasi terdiri dari beberapa aspek diantaranya, dapat berbentuk verbal (baik tertulis maupun lisan), visual (ilustrasi, gambar, demontrasi produk, mimic muka) atau kombinasi keduanya. Komunikasi juga dapat merupakan simbol (harga yang tinggi, pengemasan yang bermutu tinggi, logo yang mengesankan) dan menyampaikan arti khusus yang ingin ditanamkan oleh pemasar.

KOMPONEN KOMUNIKASI
Terdapat lima unsur dasar dalam komunikasi, yaitu pengirim, penerima, medium, pesan, dan beberapa bentuk umpan balik (tanggapan penerima pesan).

Pengirim
Pengirim sebagai pemrakarsa komunikasi, dapat merupakan sumber formal maupun informal. Sumber komunikasi formal mungkin berupa organisasi untuk memperoleh laba (komersial) maupun nirlaba. Sumber informal mungkin orang tua, atau teman yang memberikan informasi atau nasihat mengenai produk.

Penerima
Penerima komunikasi pemasaran formal cenderung menjadi calon atau pelanggan yang dibidik (yaitu anggota audien yang dibidik oleh pemasar). Audien perantara dan yang tidak diharapkan juga mungkin menerima komunikasi para pemasar. Contoh, audien perantara adalah grosir, distributor, dan pedagang ritel, yang menerima iklan perdagangan pemasar yang dimaksudkan untuk membujuk mereka agar mau memesan dan mengadakan persediaan berang dagangan. Audien yang tidak diharapkan yaitu setiap orang yang terbuka terhadap pesan yang tidak ditargetkan khusus oleh pengirim.

Medium
Medium atau saluran komunikasi mungkin impersonal (misalnya, media massa) atau interpersonal (pembicaraan resmi antara tenaga penjual dan pelanggan atau pembicaraan informal antara dua orang atau lebih yang terjadi secara langsung baik melalui telepon, surat maupun online).

Pesan
Pesan dapat bersifat verbal (lisan atau tertulis), nonverbal (foto, ilustrasi, atau symbol), atau kombinasi keduanya. Pesan verbal biasanya dapat mencakup informasi produk atau jasa yang lebih spesifik daripada pesan nonverbal. Pesan verbal yang digabungkan dengan pesan nonverbal sering memberikan lebih banyak informasi kepada penerima daripada salah satu diantara keduanya.

Umpan Balik
Umpan balik merupakan komponen yang sangat diperlukan dalam komunikasi interpersonal dan impersonal. Umpan balik yang cepat waktunya memungkinkan pengirim untuk memperkuat, mengubah, atau memodifikasi pesan untuk menjamin agar dapat dimengerti sesuai dengan yang dimaksudkan.

PROSES KOMUNIKASI

Pemrakarsa Pesan (Sumber)
Sponsor atau pemrakarsa pesan harus memutuskan kepada siapa pesan harus dikirim dan apa yang harus disampaikannya, dan kemudian merumuskan pesan sedemikian rupa sehingga artinya ditafsirkan oleh audien yang dibidik persis seperti yang dimaksudkan. Sumber komunikasi impersonal biasanya adalah organisasi yang mengolah dan mengirimkan pesan yang tepat melalui departemen khusus atau juru bicara. Publisitas biasanya merupakan hasil usaha hubungan masyarakat dan cenderung dapat lebih dipercayai karena sumber atau maksud komersialnya tidak mudah diketahui.

Kredibilitas
Kredibilitas sumber mempengaruhi perumusan pesan. Kredibilitas sumber yang merupakan unsur penting dalam daya persuasif pesan sering didasarkan pada maksud yang diharapkan.

Kredibilitas Sumber Informal
Sumber informal atau sumber-sumber editorial dianggap dianggap sangat obyektif dan sangat kredibel. Kredibilitas yang meningkat yang diberikan oleh sumber informal tidak dapat dijamin sepenuhnya, walaupun ada aura obyektivitas yang dirasakan.

Kredibilitas Sumber Formal
Sumber-sumber formal yang dirasa netral mempunyai kredibilitas yang lebih besar daripada sumber-sumber komersial karena persepsi bahwa mereka lebih obyektif dalam menilai produk. Kredilitas sumber komersial lebih problematic dan biasanya didasarkan pada penilaian gabungan atau reputasi, keahlian, pengetahuan, saluran ritel, dan jurubicara perusahaan.

Kredibilitas Jurubicara dan Pendukung
Para konsumen kadang-kadang melihat jurubicara yang menyampaikan pesan produk sebagai sumber atau pemrakarsa pesan. Para peneliti telah mempelajari hubungan antara pengertian konsumen mengenai pesan dan bujukan, dan telah menemukan bahwa jika pengertian rendah, para penerima tergantung pada kredibilitas jurubicara dalam membentuk sikap terhadap produk, tetapi jika pengertian dan pengolahan informasi sistematis tinggi, keahlian sumber jauh lebih kecil pengaruhnya terhadap sikap penerima.

Kredilitas Pesan
Pengalaman sebelumnya yang diperoleh konsumen atas produk atau pedagang ritel tertentu berpengaruh besar terhadap kredibilitas pesan. Harapan terhadap produk yang terpenuhi cenderung meningkatkan kredibilitas pesan pada masa mendatang, sebaliknya produk yang mengecewakan cenderung mengurangi kredibilitas pesan pada waktu berikutnya.

Pengaruh Waktu Terhadap Kredibilitas Sumber
Pengaruh persuasive dari sumber-sumber yang berkredibilitas tinggi tidak selalu bertahan lama, walaupun lebih berpengaruh daripada sumber yang berkredibilitas rendah. Riset menunjukkan bahwa baik pengaruh kredibilitas yang positif maupun negatif cenderung lenyap setelah sekitar 6 minggu. Gejala seperti ini disebut efek penidur (sleeper effect).

AUDIEN (PENERIMA PESAN) YANG DIBIDIK
Para penerima pesan menafsirkan pesan yang mereka terima berdasarkan pengalaman dan karakteristik pribadi.

Pengertian
Tingkat ketepatan arti yang diperoleh dari pesan merupakan fungsi dari karakteristik pesan, kesempatan dan kemampuan penerima untuk mengolah pesan itu, dan motivasi penerima. Karakteristik pribadi seseorang mempengaruhi ketepatan dalam menafsirkan pesan.

Suasana Hati (Mood)
Suasana hati atau pengaruh perasaan memainkan peranan penting terhadap cara pesan yang diterima. Suasana hati konsumen mempengaruhi cara bagaimana sebuah iklan diterima, diingat, dan ditindaklanjuti.

Hambatan Komunikasi
Berbagai hambatan terhadap komunikasi dapat mempengaruhi ketepatan interpretasi pesan oleh konsumen. Hambatan ini meliputi:

Persepsi selektif, para konsumen cenderung mengabaikan iklan-iklan yang tidak mengandung kepentingan khusus atau tidak berkaitan dengan mereka.
Kegaduhan psikologis, misalnya pesan-pesan iklan yang bersaing, dapat mengganggu penerimaan suatu pesan.

UMPAN BALIK (TANGGAPAN PENERIMA PESAN)

Pengirim pesan penting untuk memperoleh umpan balik sesegera dan seakurat mungkin, karena melalui umpan balik pengirim dapat menentukan apakah dan seberapa baik pesan telah diterima.

Riset Keefektifan Iklan
Para pemasang iklan sering berusaha mengukur keefektifan pesan dengan menyelenggarakan riset audien untuk mengetahui media apa yang dibaca, program-program televisi apa yang ditonton dan iklan-iklan apa yang diingat. Riset keefektifan iklan, yang disebut copy testing, dapat dilakukan sebelum iklan benar-benar dimuat (pretesting) atau setelah terbit (posttesting).

MERANCANG KOMUNIKASI YANG PERSUASIF
Untuk menciptakan komunikasi yang persuasif, sponsor (individu maupun organisasi) lebih dahulu menentukan tujuan komunikasi, kemudian memilih audien yang tepat untuk pesan yang disampaikan dan media untuk mencapai mereka serta menyusun (encode) pesan dengan cara yang tepat untuk setiap medium dan setiap audien.

Strategi Komunikasi
Dalam menyusun strategi komunikasi terlebih dahulu harus menentukan tujuan komunikasi yang utama. Komponen strategi komunikasi yang penting adalah memilih audien yang tepat.

Strategi Media
Strategi media merupakan unsur penting dalam rencana komunikasi. Rencana ini diperlukan untuk penempatan iklan dalam berbagai media khusus yang dibaca, ditonton, atau didengar oleh berbagai pasar yang dipilih untuk dibidik. Pemilihan media tergantung pada produk, audien, dan tujuan kampanye iklan, strategi media dapat dilakukan melalui:

World Wide Web (melalui internet)
Penentuan target yang seksama
Pemasaran langsung
Strategi Pesan
Pesan merupakan pemikiran, gagasan, sikap, citra, atau informasi lain yang ingin disampaikan pengirim kepada audien yang diharapkan.

Komponen dalam strategi pesan meliputi:

Retorika dan Persuasi Iklan, fokus utama riset retorika adalah menemukan cara yang paling efektif untuk menyatakan pesan dalam situasi tertentu. Penyampaian retorik paling efektif terhadap para konsumen yang tidak mempunyai motivasi. Resonansi iklan didefinisikan sebagai permainan kata yang dikombinasikan dengan gambar yang ada kaitannya.
Teori Keterlibatan, bahwa dalam situasi pembalian dengan keterlibatan yang tinggi orang mungkin lebih mencurahkan usaha kognitif yang aktif untuk menilai hal-hal yang disetujui maupun tidak atas produk tertentu. Dalam situasi keterlibatan yang rendah seseorang lebih cenderung memfokuskan pada isyarat-isyarat pesan yang bukan pokok.
Penyajian Pesan, diantara berbagai keputusan yang harus diambil oleh para pemasar dalam merancang pesan adalah keputusan apakah akan menggunakan susunan pesan yangpositif-negatif, pesan satu-sisi atau dua-sisi, iklan perbandingan, pengaruh urutan, atau pengulangan. Cara pesan yang disajikan mempengaruhi dampaknya. Sebagai contoh, pesan satu-sisi lebih efektif pada beberapa situasi dan audien, pesan dua-sisi lebih efektif pada situasi lain. Produk dengan keterlibatan yang tinggi (produk yang sangat berkaitan dengan segmen konsumen) paling baik diiklankan dengan cara yang pokok melalui persuasi, yang mendorong usaha kognitif aktif. Produk dengan keterlibatan yang rendah paling baik dipromosikan melalui berbagai isyarat tidak pokok, seperti latar belakang pemandangan, music, atau jurubicara selebritis.

Daya Tarik Iklan
Daya tarik emosi yang sering digunakan dalam iklan meliputi rasa takut, humor, dan daya tarik seksual. Jika tema seksual berkaitan dengan produk, maka hal ini dapat menjadi sangat efektif dan jika digunakan hanya sebagai penarik perhatian, ingatan pada merk jarang tercapai. Partisipasi audien merupakan strategi komunikasi yang sangat efektif karena mendorong internalisasi pesan iklan. Riset lebih lanjut diperlukan untuk mengenali berbagai variabel produk, audien dan situasi yang menjadi perantara pengaruh urutan dan penyajian pesan dalam membujuk para konsumen untuk membeli.

Referensi:
Schiffman, L.G., & Kanuk, L.L. 2007. Consumer Behaviour, 9th ed. New Jersey, Pearson Prentice Hall.

KELAS SOSIAL DAN PERILAKU KONSUMEN

noreply@blogger.com (sourceSite) — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 07:22:00 +0000

Kelas sosial dapat dianggap sebagai suatu rangkaian kesatuan yaitu serangkaian posisi sosial dimana setiap anggota masyarakatdapat ditempatkan, para peneliti membagi rangkaian kesatuan itu menjadi sejumlah kecil kelas sosial yang khusus atau strata. Konsep kelas sosial digunakan untuk menempatkan individu atau keluarga dalam suatu kategori sosial. Kelas sosial didefinisikan sebagai pembagian anggota masyarakat ke dalam suatu hierarki status kelas yang berbeda, sehingga para anggota setiap kelas secara relative mempunyai status yang sama dan para anggota kelas lainnya mempunyai status yang lebih tinggi atau lebih rendah.

KELAS SOSIAL DAN STATUS SOSIAL

Mengukur kelas sosial dari sudut status sosial yaitu dengan membatasi setiap kelas sosial dengan banyaknya status yang dipunyai para anggota dibandingkan dengan anggota kelas sosial lainnya. Dalam penelitian kelas sosial (terkadang disebut stratifikasi sosial), status sering dinggap sebagai penggolongan relative para anggota setiap kelas sosial dari segi faktor-faktor tertentu.

Sebagai contoh, kekayaan relative (banyaknya asset ekonomi), kekuasaan (tingkat pilihan atau pengaruh pribadi terhadap orang lain) dan martabat (tingkat pengakuan yang diperoleh dari orang lain) merupakan tiga faktor yang sering digunakan ketika menilai kelas sosial.

KELAS SOSIAL MERUPAKAN BENTUK SEGMENTASI HIERARKIS DAN ALAMIAH

Kategori kelas sosial biasanya disusun dalam hierarki, yang berkisar dari status yang rendah sampai yang tinggi. Penggolongan kelas sosial berarti bahwa orang lain sama dengan mereka (dalam kelas sosial yang sama), superior dibandingkan mereka (kelas sosial yang lebih tinggi), maupun inferior dibandingkan mereka (kelas sosial yang lebih rendah. Keanggotaaan kelas sosial dipakai konsumen sebagai suatu kerangka rujukan (kelompok rujukan) untuk pengembangan sikap dan perilaku.

KATEGORI KELAS SOSIAL
Belum ada kesepakatan diantara para sosiolog berapa banyak pembagian kelas yang diperlukan untuk dapat menggambarkan dengan cukup jelas struktur kelas di Amerika Serikat.

UKURAN KELAS SOSIAL
Pendekatan yang sistematis untuk mengukur kelas sosial tercakup dalam berbagai kategori yang luas, meliputi ukuran subyektif, ukuran reputasi, ukuran obyektif dari kelas sosial.

UKURAN SUBYEKTIF
Untuk mengukur kelas sosial dengan pendekatan ini, para individu diminta untuk menaksir kedudukan kelas sosial mereka masing-masing. Klasifikasi keanggotaan kelas sosial yang dihasilkan didasarkan pada persepsi partisipan terhadap dirinya atau citra diri partisipan. Kelas sosial dianggap sebagai fenomena “pribadi” yaitu fenomena yang menggambarkan rasa memiliki seseorang atau identifikasi dengan orang lain. Rasa keanggotaan kelompok sosial ini sering disebut kesadaran sosial.

UKURAN REPUTASI
Pendekatan reputasi untuk mengukur kelas sosial memerlukan informan mengenai masyarakat yang dipilih untuk membuat pertimbangan awal mengenai keanggotaan kelas sosial orang lain dalam masyarakat.

UKURAN OBYEKTIF
Ukuran obyektif terdiri dari berbagai variabell demografis atau sosioekonomisyang dipilih mengenai individu yang sedang dipelajari. Ukuran obyektif kelas sosial terbagi menjadi dua kategori pokok yaitu indeks variabel tunggal dan indeks variabel gabungan.

Indeks Variabel Tunggal
Indeks variabel tunggal hanya menggunakan satu variabel sosial ekonomi untuk menilai keanggotaan kelas sosial. Beberapa variabel digunakan untuk tujuan sebagai berikut:

Pekerjaan, merupakan ukuran sosial yang diterima secara luas dan mungkin merupakan ukuran kelas sosial terbaik yang dapat didokumentasikan karena menggambarkan status yang berhubungan dengan pekerjaan.
Pendidikan, tingkat pendidikan formal seseorang merupakan perkiraan lain bagi kedudukan kelas sosial yang umum diterima. Semakin tinggi pendidikan seseorang maka semakin besar kemungkinan orang tersebut memiliki penghasilan yang tinggi dan juga kedudukan yang dikagumi atau dihormati.
Penghasilan, yaitu perorangan atau keluarga merupakan variabel sosial ekonomi lain yang sering digunakan untuk memperkirakan kedudukan kelas sosial.
Variabel Lain, yang digunakan sebagai sebuah indeks kelas sosial adalah barang yang dimiliki. Skema yang paling terkenal dan merupakan alat penilai yang paling rumit untuk mengevaluasi barang yang dimiliki adalah skala status sosial chapin.

Indeks Variabel Gabungan
Indeks gabungan secara sistematis menggabungkan sejumlah faktor sosial ekonomi untuk membentuk satu ukuran kedudukan kelas sosial yang menyeluruh. Indeks ini sangat menarik untuk diteliti karena dapat menggambarkan dengan lebih baik, kompleknya kelas sosial dibandingkan indeks variabel tungggal.
Dua indeks gabungan yang paling penting adalah:

Indeks karakteristik status, ukuran gabungan kelas sosial yang klasik adalah Warner’s Index of Status Characteristics (ISC). ISC merupakan ukuran tertimbang dari berbagai variabel sosial ekonomi pekerjaan, penghasilan (jumlah penghasilan), model rumah dan daerah tempat tinggal (kualitas lingkungan)
Skor status sosial ekonomi, sosioekonomic Status Score (SES) menggabungkan tiga variabel pekerjaan, penghasilan keluarga dan tingkat pendidikan. SES ini dikembangkan oleh United States Bureau of The Census

PROFIL GAYA HIDUP KELAS SOSIAL
Telah ditemukan bukti bahwa di setiap kelas sosial ada faktor-faktor gaya hidup tertentu (kepercayaan, sikap, kegiatan dan perilaku bersama) yang cenderung membedakan anggota setiap kelas dari anggota kelas sosial lainnya. Profil kelas sosial disajikan sebagai sebuah potret gabungan berikut ini: kelas atas-atas, kelas atas-bawah, kelas menengah-atas, kelas menengah-bawah, kelas bawah-atas dan kelas bawah-bawah.

GERAKAN KELAS SOSIAL

Gerakan naik disebabkan karena tersedianya pendidikan bebas dan berbagai peluang untuk mengembangkan dan memajukan diri
Gerakan turun

PENGELOMPOKAN GEODEMOGRAFI
Pada tahun-tahun belakangan ini ukuran kelas sosial tradisional telah diperbaiki oleh hunbungan antara data geografis dan sosial ekonomi konsumen guna menciptakan pengelompokan geodemografi yang lebih kuat. Dasar pemikiran yang melandasi ini adalah “orang yang memiliki persamaan dalam suatu hal biasanya berkumpul bersama-sama.

KONSUMEN YANG KAYA
Rumah tangga yang kaya merupakan segmen target yang sangat menarik karena anggotanya memiliki penghasilan yang dapat memberikan bagian yang lebih besar dari semua penghasilan mereka yang bebas untuk dipergunakan menurut kemampuan mereka sendiri.

PENGUNGKAPAN MEDIA PADA KONSUMEN KAYA
Kebiasaan-kebiasaan media orang kaya berbeda dengan kebiasaan-kebiasaan media penduduk biasa. Sebagai contoh, orang memiliki penghasilan lebih tinggi menonton TV lebih sedikit dibandingkan dengan orang yang yang berpenghasilan lebih rendah.

MEMBAGI PASAR KAYA
Karena tidak semua konsumen kaya memiliki gaya hidup yang sama, pemasar telah berusaha memisahkan berbagai segmen yang penting dalam pasar kaya ini seperti yang telah dilakukan oleh Mediamark Research, Inc (MRI) yang telah membagi segmen pasar kaya menjadi:

Well-Feathered Nests, rumah tangga dengan paling sedikit satu orang yang memperoleh penghasilan tinggi dan ada anak-anak (37% dari Upper Deck)
No String Attached, rumah tangga dengan paling sedikit satu orang yang memperoleh penghasilan tinggi dan tidak ada anak-anak (32% dari Upper Deck).
Nanny’s in Charge, rumah tangga dengan dua orang atau lebih yang mempunyai penghasilan, tidak ada yang mempunyai penghasilan tinggi dan ada anak (11% dari Upper Deck).
Two Careers, rumah tangga dengan dua orang atau lebih yang mempunyai penghasilan, tidak ada yang mempunyai penghasilan tinggi tetapi tidak ada anak (14% dari Upper Deck).
The Good Life, rumah tangga dengan tingkat kemakmuran tinggi, tanpa adanya orang bekerja dan kepala rumah tangga yang tidak bekerja (6% dari Upper Deck).

Sedikitnya pesaing pasar local, orang kaya pedesaan merupakan segmen bagian pasar kaya yang belum dijangkau. Orang kaya pedesaan biasa dibagi menjadi empat kategori:

Sub-urban Transplants, orang-orang yang pindah keluar kota tetapi masih pulang pergi ke tempat pekerjaan di kota dengan gaji yang tinggi.
Equity-rich Sub-urban Expatriates, penduduk kota yang menjual rumah mereka untuk memperoleh keuntungan yang sangat besar, kemudian membeli rumah yang jauh lebih murah di kota kecil dan hidup jauh berbeda.
City Folks with Country Homes, orang kaya yang suka liburan yang melewatkan musim dingin atau musim panas di daerah-daerah pedesaan yang indah pemandangannya, terutama di gunung dan pantai.
Welthy Landowners, para petani dan penduduk asli lain yang kaya yang menjalani hidup senang dari tanahnya.

KONSUMEN YANG TIDAK KAYA
Orang yang berpenghasilan rendah atau konsumen kelas bawah (penghasilan kurang dari $30,000) mungkin merupakan orang-orang yang setia kepada merk daripada para konsumen yang lebih kayak arena mereka khawatir akan membuat kesalahan dengan beralih ke merk yang belum mereka kenal.

MUNCULNYA KELAS TECHNO
Kelas ini muncul karena adanya kemajuan tehnologi. Orang-orang yang yang tidak biasa dengan atau kurang mempunyai keterampilan computer disebut “ketinggalan teknologi”. Adanya anggapan bahwa ketidakmampuan dalam menggunakan teknologi secara memadai berdampak negative terhadap gaya dan kualitas hidup. Hal ini berdampak pada terbentuknya “struktur kelas teknologi” yang berpusat disekitar tingginya keterampilan computer yang dimiliki seseorang.

PENERAPAN KELAS SOSIAL KE PERILAKU KONSUMEN YANG DIPILIH
PAKAIAN, MODE, DAN BERBELANJA
Para anggota kelas tertentu memiliki sudut pandang yang berbeda mengenai apa yang mereka anggap sesuai dengan mode atau selera yang baik. Kelas sosial juga merupakan variabel yang penting dalam menentukan dimana seorang konsumen berbelanja.

PENCARIAN WAKTU SENGGANG
Keanggotaan kelas sosial erat hubungannya dengan kegiatan rekreasi dan waktu senggang.

SIMPANAN, PENGELUARAN, DAN KREDIT
Simpanan, pengeluaran dan pemakaian kartu kredit memiliki hubungan dengan kedudukan kelas sosial.

KELAS SOSIAL DAN KOMUNIKASI
Pengelompokan kelas sosial berbeda dari sudut kebiasaan media mereka dan bagaimana menyampaikan dan menerima komunikasi. Pengetahuan mengenai perbedaan ini penting bagi para pemasar yang membagi pasar mereka atas dasar kelas-sosial.

Referensi:
Schiffman, L.G., & Kanuk, L.L. 2007. Consumer Behaviour, 9th ed. New Jersey, Pearson Prentice Hall.

DEFINISI PEMASARAN DAN MANAJEMEN PEMASARAN

noreply@blogger.com (sourceSite) — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 02:29:00 +0000

BAB I

PENGERTIAN, KONSEP, DEFINISI PEMASARAN

DAN MANAJEMEN PEMASARAN

A. Pengertian Pemasaran

Ada beberapa definisi mengenai pemasaran diantaranya adalah :

a. Philip Kotler (Marketing) pemasaran adalah kegiatan manusia yang diarahkan untuk memenuhi kebutuhan dan keinginan melalui proses pertukaran.

b. Menurut Philip Kotler dan Amstrong pemasaran adalah sebagai suatu proses sosial dan managerial yang membuat individu dan kelompok memperoleh apa yang mereka butuhkan dan inginkan lewat penciptaan dan pertukaran timbal balik produk dan nilai dengan orang lain.

c. Pemasaran adalah suatu sistem total dari kegiatan bisnis yang dirancang untuk merencanakan, menentukan harga, promosi dan mendistribusikan barang- barang yang dapat memuaskan keinginan dan mencapai pasar sasaran serta tujuan perusahaan.

d. Menurut W Stanton pemasaran adalah sistem keseluruhan dari kegiatan usaha yang ditujukan untuk merencanakan, menentukan harga, mempromosikan dan mendistribusikan barang dan jasa yang dapat memuaskan kebutuhan pembeli maupun pembeli potensial.

B. Konsep Pemasaran

Konsep-konsep inti pemasaran meluputi: kebutuhan, keinginan, permintaan, produksi, utilitas, nilai dan kepuasan; pertukaran, transaksi dan hubungan pasar, pemasaran dan pasar. Kita dapat membedakan antara kebutuhan, keinginan dan permintaan. Kebutuhan adalah suatu keadaan dirasakannya ketiadaan kepuasan dasar tertentu. Keinginan adalah kehendak yang kuat akan pemuas yang spesifik terhadap kebutuhan-kebutuhan yang lebih mendalam. Sedangkan Permintaan adalah keinginan akan produk yang spesifik yang didukung dengan kemampuan dan kesediaan untuk membelinya.

C. Manajemen Pemasaran

Manajemen pemasaran berasal dari dua kata yaitu manajemen dan pemasaran. Menurut Kotler dan Armstrong pemasaran adalah analisis, perencanaan, implementasi, dan pengendalian dari program-program yang dirancang untuk menciptakan, membangun, dan memelihara pertukaran yang menguntungkan dengan pembeli sasaran untuk mencapai tujuan perusahaan. Sedangakan manajemen adalah proses perencanaan (Planning), pengorganisasian (organizing) penggerakan (Actuating) dan pengawasan.

Jadi dapat diartikan bahwa Manajemen Pemasaran adalah sebagai analisis, perencanaan, penerapan, dan pengendalian program yang dirancang untuk menciptakan, membangun, dan mempertahankan pertukaran yang menguntungkan dengan pasar sasaran dengan maksud untuk mencapai tujuan – tujuan organisasi.

Kesimpulan :

Dari uraian diatas dapat disimpulkan bahwa manajemen pemasaran adalah sebagai kegiatan yang direncanakan, dan diorganisasiknan yang meliputi pendistribusian barang, penetapan harga dan dilakukan pengawasan terhadap kebijakan-kebijakan yang telah dibuat yang tujuannya untuk mendapatkan tempat dipasar agar tujuan utama dari pemasaran dapat tercapai.

BAB II

MACAM-MACAM KONSEP PEMASARAN

I. Konsep Pemasaran

Konsep pemasaran mengatakan bahwa kunci untuk mencapai tujuan organisasi terdiri dari penentuan kebutuhan dan keinginan pasar sasaran serta memberikan kepuasaan yang diharapkan secara lebih efektif dan efisien dibandingkan para pesaing.

Konsep pemasaran yang telah diungkapkan dengan berbagai cara:

1. Temukan keinginan pasar dan penuhilah.

2. Buatlah apa yang dapat dijual dan jangan berusaha menjual apa yang dapat dibuat.

3. Cintailah pelanggan, bukan produk anda.

4. Lakukanlah menurut cara anda (Burger king)

5. Andalah yang menentukan (United Airlines)

6. Melakukan segalanya dalam batas kemampuan untuk menghargai uang pelanggan yang sarat dengan nilai, mutu dan kepuasan (JC. Penney).

Dalam pemasaran terdapat enam konsep yang merupakan dasar pelaksanaan kegiatan pemasaran suatu organisasi yaitu : konsep produksi, konsep produk, konsep penjualan, konsep pemasaran, konsep pemasaran sosial, dan konsep pemasaran global.

1. Konsep produksi

Konsep produksi berpendapat bahwa konsumen akan menyukai produk yang tersedia dimana-mana dan harganya murah. Konsep ini berorientasi pada produksi dengan mengerahkan segenap upaya untuk mencapai efesiensi produk tinggi dan distribusi yang luas. Disini tugas manajemen adalah memproduksi barang sebanyak mungkin, karena konsumen dianggap akan menerima produk yang tersedia secara luas dengan daya beli mereka.

2. Konsep produk

Konsep produk mengatakan bahwa konsumen akan menyukai produk yang menawarkan mutu, performansi dan ciri-ciri yang terbaik. Tugas manajemen disini adalah membuat produk berkualitas, karena konsumen dianggap menyukai produk berkualitas tinggi dalam penampilan dengan ciri – ciri terbaik

3. Konsep penjualan

Konsep penjualan berpendapat bahwa konsumen, dengan dibiarkan begitu saja, organisasi harus melaksanakan upaya penjualan dan promosi yang agresif.

4. Konsep pemasaran

Konsep pemasaran mengatakan bahwa kunsi untuk mencapai tujuan organisasi terdiri dari penentuan kebutuhan dan keinginan pasar sasaran serta memberikan kepuasan yang diharapkan secara lebih efektif dan efisien dibandingkan para pesaing.

5. Konsep pemasaran sosial

Konsep pemasaran sosial berpendapat bahwa tugas organisasi adalah menentukan kebutuhan, keinginan dan kepentingan pasar sasaran serta memberikan kepuasan yang diharapkan dengan cara yang lebih efektif dan efisien daripasda para pesaing dengan tetap melestarikan atau meningkatkan kesejahteraan konsumen dan masyarakat.

6. Konsep Pemasaran Global

Pada konsep pemasaran global ini, manajer eksekutif berupaya memahami semua faktor- faktor lingkungan yang mempengaruhi pemasaran melalui manajemen strategis yang mantap. tujuan akhirnya adalah berupaya untuk memenuhi keinginan semua pihak yang terlibat dalam perusahaan.

BAB III

SISTEM PEMASARAN

A. Pengertian Sistem Pemasaran

Sistem adalah sekolompok item atau bagian-bagia yang saling berhubungan dan saling berkaitan secara tetap dalam membentuk satu kesatuan terpadu. Jadi dapat diartikan sistem pemasaran adalah kumpulan lembaga-lembaga yang melakukan tugas pemasaran barang, jasa, ide, orang, dan faktor-faktor lingkungan yang saling memberikan pengaruh dan membentuk serta mempengaruhi hubungan perusahaan dengan pasarnya..

Dalam pemasaran kelompok item yang saling berhubungan dan saling berkaitan itu mencakup :

1. Gabungan organisasi yang melaksanakan kerja pemasaran.

2. Produk, jasa, gagasan atau manusia yang dipasarkan.

3. Target pasar.

4. Perantara (pengecer, grosir, agen transportasi, lembaga keuangan).

5. Kendala lingkungan (environmental constraints).

Sistem pemasaran yang paling sederhana terdiri dari dua unsur yang saling berkaitan, yaitu organisasi pemasaran dan target pasarnmya. Unsur-unsur dalam sebuah sistem pemasaran serupa dengan unsur-unsur yang ada pada sistem radio stereo. Bekerja secara terpisah, tetapi pada waktu dipertemukan secara tepat.

B. Macam – Macam Sistem Pemasaran

a. Sistem pemasaran dengan saluran vertikal

Pada sistem ini produsen, grosir, dan pengecer bertindak dalam satu keterpaduan.

Tujuan :

§ Mengendalikan perilaku saluran

§ Mencegah perselisihan antara anggota saluran

b. Sistem pemasaran dengan saluran horizontal

Pada sistem ini, ada suatu kerjasama antara dua atau lebih perusahaan yang bergabung untuk memanfaatkan peluang pemasaran yang muncul.

c. Sistem pemasaran dengan saluran ganda

Pada sistem ini beberapa gaya pengeceran dengan pengaturan fungsi distribusi dan manajemen digabungkan, kemudian dari belakang dipimpin secara sentral.

C. Lingkungan Sebuah Sistem Pemasaran

a. Lingkungan makro ekstern.

Lingkungan makro tersebut ialah:

a. Demografi (kependudukan).

b. Kondisi ekonomi.

c. Teknologi.

d. Kekuatan sosial dan budaya.

e. Kekuatan politik dan legal.

f. Persaingan.

b. Lingkungan mikro eksternal

a. Pasar (market)

b. Pemasok

c. Pialang (marketing intermediaries)

c. Lingkungan Non- – Pemasaran Intern

Kekuatan non – pemasaran lainnya adalah lokasi perusahaan, ketangguhan bagian penelitian dan pengembangan. Kekuatan intern bersifat menyatu (interest) dalam organisasi dan dikendalikan oleh manajemen.

BAB IV

STRATEGI PEMASARAN

A. Pengertian Strategi Pemasaran

Strategi pemasaran adalah pengambilan keputusan-keputusan tentang biaya pemasaran, bauran pemasaran, alokasi pemasaran dalam hubungan dengan keadaan lingkungan yang diharapkan dan kondisi persaingan. Dalam strategi pemasaran, ada tiga faktor utama yang menyebabkan terjadinya perubahan strategi dalam pemasaran yaitu :

1. Daur hidup produk

Strategi harus disesuaikan dengan tahap-tahap daur hidup, yaitu tahap perkenalan, tahap pertumbuhan, tahap kedewasaan dan tahap kemunduran.

2. Posisi persaingan perusahaan di pasar

Strategi pemasaran harus disesuaikan dengan posisi perusahaan dalam persaingan, apakah memimpin, menantang, mengikuti atau hanya mengambil sebagian kecil dari pasar.

3. Situasi ekonomi

Strategi pemasaran harus disesuaikan dengan situasi ekonomi dan pandangan kedepan, apakah ekonomi berada dalam situasi makmur atau inflasi tinggi.

B. Macam-Macam Strategi Pemasaran

macam strategi pemasaran diantaranya:

1. Strategi kebutuhan primer

Strategi-strategi pemasaran untuk merancang kebutuah primer yaitu:

1. Menambah jumlah pemakai dan

2. Meningkatkan jumlah pembeli.

2. Strategi Kebutuhan Selektif

Yaitu dengan cara :

a. Mempertahankan pelanggan misalnya:

1. Memelihara kepuasan pelanggan;

2. Menyederhanakan proses pembelian;

3. Mengurangi daya tarik atau jelang untuk beralih merk;

b. Menjaring pelanggan (Acquistion Strategier)

1. Mengambil posisi berhadapan (head – to heas positioning)

2. Mengambil posisi berbeda (differentiated positin)

Secara lebih jelas, strategi pemasaran dapat dibagi kedalam empat jenis yaitu:

1. Merangsang kebutuhan primer dengan menambah jumlah pemakai.

2. Merangsang kebutuhan primer dengan memperbesar tingkat pembelian.

3. Merangsang kebutuhan selektif dengan mempertahankan pelanggan yang ada.

4. Merangsang kebutuhgan selektif dengan menjaring pelanggan baru.

Strategi Pemasaran
Menurut Armstrong dan Kotler (2000:5), marketing adalah “A societal process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating, offering and freely exchanging products and services of value with others”.
Sedangkan pengertian Marketing strategy menurut Armstrong dan Kotler (2000:37), yaitu “The marketing logic by which the business unit hopes to achieve its marketing objective”.
Menurut Guiltinan dan Paul (1992), definisi strategi pemasaran adalah pernyataan pokok
tentang dampak yang diharapkan akan dicapai dalam hal permintaan pada target pasar yang ditentukan.

Segmentasi (Segmentation)
Menurut Solomon dan Elnora (2003:221), segmentasi adalah ”The process of dividing a larger market into smaller pieces based on one or more meaningful, shared characteristic”. Dengan melaksanakan segmentasi pasar, kegiatan pemasaran dapat dilakukan lebih terarah dan sumber daya yang dimiliki perusahaan dapat digunakan secara lebih efektif dan efisien dalam rangka memberikan kepuasan bagi konsumen. Selain itu perusahaan dapat melakukan program-program pemasaran yang terpisah untuk memenuhi kebutuhan khas masing-masing segmen.
Ada beberapa variabel segmentasi yaitu:
1. Demografis
Segmentasi ini dilakukan dengan membagi pasar ke dalam kelompok-kelompok berdasarkan variabel demografis sepert: Usia, jenis kelamin, besarnya keluarga, pendapatan, ras, pendidikan, pekerjaan, geografis.
2. Psikografis
Segmentasi ini dilakukan dengan membagi pasar ke dalam kelompok-kelompok yang berlainan menurut kelas sosial, gaya hidup, kepribadian, dan lain-lain. Informasi demografis sangat berguna, tetapi tidak selalu menyediakan informasi yang cukup untuk membagi konsumen ke dalam segmen-segmen, sehingga diperlukan segmen berdasarkan psychografis untuk lebih memahami karakteristik konsumen.
3. Perilaku
Segmentasi ini dilakukan dengan membagi konsumen ke dalam segmen-segmen berdasarkan bagaimana tingkah laku, perasaan, dan cara konsumen menggunakan barang/situasi pemakaian, dan loyalitas merek. Cara untuk membuat segmen ini yaitu dengan membagi pasar ke dalam pengguna dan non-pengguna produk.

Agar segmen pasar dapat bermanfaat maka harus memenuhi beberapa karakteristik:
• Measurable : Ukuran, daya beli, dan profil segmen harus dapat diukur meskipun ada beberapa variabel yang sulit diukur.
• Accessible : Segmen pasar harus dapat dijangkau dan dilayani secara efektif.
• Substantial : Segmen pasar harus cukup besar dan menguntungkan untuk dilayani
• Differentiable : Segmen-segmen dapat dipisahkan secara konseptual dan memberikan tanggapan yang berbeda terhadap elemen-elemen dan bauran pemasaran yang berbeda.
• Actionable : Program yang efektif dapat dibuat untuk menarik dan melayani segmen-segmen yang bersangkutan.
Langkah dalam mengembangkan segmentasi yaitu:
1. Mensegmen pasar menggunakan variabel-variabel permintaan, seperti kebutuhan konsumen, manfaat yang dicari, dan situasi pemakaian.
2. Mendeskripsikan segmen pasar yang diidentifikasikan dengan menggunakan variabel-variabel yang dapat membantu perusahaan memahami cara melayani kebutuhan konsumen tersebut dan cara berkomunikasi dengan konsumen.

Targeting
Menurut Solomon dan Elnora (2003:232), Target market ialah ”Group that a firm selects to turn into customers as a result of segmentation and targeting”.
Setelah pasar dibagi-bagi dalam segmen-segmen, maka perusahaan harus memutuskan suatu strategi target market.
Perusahaan dapat memilih dari empat strategi peliputan pasar:

1. Undifferentiated targeting strategy, strategi ini menganggap suatu pasar sebagai satu pasar besar dengan kebutuhan yang serupa, sehingga hanya ada satu bauran pemasaran yang digunakan untuk melayani semua pasar.
Perusahaan mengandalkan produksi, distribusi, dan periklanan massa guna menciptakan citra superior di mata sebagian besar konsumen.
2. Differentiated targeting strategy, perusahaan menghasilkan beberapa produk yang memiliki karakteritik yang berbeda. Konsumen membutuhkan variasi dan perubahan sehingga perusahaan berusaha untuk menawarkan berbagai macam produk yang bisa memenuhi variasi kebutuhan tersebut.
3. Concentrated targeting strategy, perusahaan lebih memfokuskan menawarkan beberapa produk pada satu segmen yang dianggap paling potensial.
4. Custom targeting strategy, lebih mengarah kepada pendekatan terhadap konsumen secara individual.
Langkah dalam mengembangkan targeting yaitu:
1. Mengevaluasi daya tarik masing-masing segmen dengan menggunakan variable-variabel yang dapat mengkuantifikasi kemungkinan permintaan dari setiap segmen, biaya melayani setiap segmen, dan kesesuaian antara kompetensi inti perusahaan dan peluang pasar sasaran.
2. Memilih satu atau lebih segmen sasaran yang ingin dilayani berdasarkan potensi laba segmen tersebut dan kesesuaiannya dengan strategi korporat perusahaan.

Positioning
Menurut Solomon, dan Elnora (2003:235), Positioning ialah “Developing a marketing strategy aimed at influencing how a particular market segment perceives a good or service in comparison to the competition”. Penentuan posisi pasar menunjukkan bagaimana suatu produk dapat dibedakan dari para pesaingnya.
Ada beberapa positioning yang dapat dilakukan:
a. Positioning berdasarkan perbedaan produk.
Pendekatan ini dapat dilakukan jika produk suatu perusahaan mempunyai kekuatan yang lebih dibandingkan dengan pesaing dan konsumen harus merasakan benar adanya perbedaan dan manfaatnya.
b. Positioning berdasarkan atribut produk atau keuntungan dari produk tersebut.
Pendekatan ini berusaha mengidentifikasikan atribut apa yang dimiliki suatu produk dan manfaat yang dirasakan oleh kosumen atas produk tersebut.
c. Positioning berdasarkan pengguna produk.
Pendekatan ini hampir sama dengan targeting dimana lebih menekankan pada siapa pengguna produk.
d. Positioning berdasarkan pemakaian produk.
Pendekatan ini digunakan dengan membedakan pada saat apa produk tersebut
dikonsumsi.
e. Positioning berdasarkan pesaing.
Pendekatan ini digunakan dengan membandingkan keunggulan-keunggulan yang dimiliki oleh pesaing sehingga konsumen dapat memilih produk mana yang lebih baik.
f. Positioning berdasarkan kategori produk.
Pendekatan ini digunakan untuk bersaing secara langsung dalam kategori produk, terutama ditujukan untuk pemecahan masalah yang sering dihadapi oleh pelanggan.
g. Positioning berdasarkan asosiasi.
Pendekatan ini mengasosiasikan produk yang dihasilkan dengan asosiasi yang dimiliki oleh produk lain. Harapannya adalah sebagian asosiasi tersebut dapat memberikan kesan positif terhadap produk yang dihasilkan oleh perusahaan.
h. Positioning berdasarkan masalah.
Pendekatan ini digunakan untuk menunjukkan kepada konsumen bahwa produk yang ditawarkan memiliki positioning untuk dapat memecahkan masalah.
Langkah dalam mengembangkan strategi positioning yaitu:
1. Mengidentifikasi Keunggulan Kompetitif. Jika perusahaan dapat menentukan posisinya sendiri sebagai yang memberikan nilai superior kepada sasaran terpilih, maka ia memperoleh keunggulan komparatif.
2. Dalam menawarkan produk dengan suatu competitive advantage, perusahaan harus meyediakan suatu alasan mengapa pelanggan akan merasa bahwa produk dari perusahaan yang bersangkutan lebih baik daripada para pesaingnya.
3. Perusahaan harus mengevaluasi respon dari target market sehingga dapat memodifikasi strategi bila dibutuhkan

Pengertian Saluran Distribusi
Menurut Nitisemito (1993, p.102), Saluran Distribusi adalah lembaga-lembaga distributor atau lembaga-lembaga penyalur yang mempunyai kegiatan untuk menyalurkan atau menyampaikan barang-barang atau jasa-jasa dari produsen ke konsumen.
Menurut Warren J. Keegan (2003) Saluran Distribusi adalah saluran yang digunakan oleh produsen untuk menyalurkan barang tersebut dari produsen sampai ke konsumen atau pemakai industri.
Menurut Assauri (1990 : 3) Saluran distribusi merupakan lembaga-lembaga yang memasarkan produk, yang berupa barang atau jasa dari produsen ke konsumen.
Menurut Kotler (1991 : 279) Saluran distribusi adalah sekelompok perusahaan atau perseorangan yang memiliki hak pemilikan atas produk atau membantu memindahkan hak pemilikan produk atau jasa ketika akan dipindahkan dari produsen ke konsumen.

Faktor yang mendorong suatu perusahaan menggunakan distributor, adalah:
- Para produsen atau perusahaan kecil dengan sumber keuangan terbatas tidak mampu mengembangkan organisasi penjualan langsung.
- Para distributor nampaknya lebih efektif dalam penjualan partai besar karena skala operasi mereka dengan pengecer dan keahlian khususnya.
- Para pengusaha pabrik yang cukup model lebih senang menggunakan dana mereka untuk ekspansi daripada untuk melakukan kegiatan promosi.
- Pengecer yang menjual banyak sering lebih senang membeli macam-macam barang dari seorang grosir daripada membeli langsung dari masing-masing pabriknya.

Fungsi Saluran Distribusi
Fungsi utama saluran distribusi adalah menyalurkan barang dari produsen ke konsumen, maka perusahaan dalam melaksanakan dan menentukan saluran distribusi harus melakukan pertimbangan yang baik.

C. Segmentasi Pasar

Segmentasi pasar adalah kegiatan membagi suatu pasar menjadi kelompok-kelompok pembeli yang berbeda yang memiliki kebutuhan, karakteristik, atau perilaku yang berbeda yang mungkin membutuhkan produk atau bauran pemasaran yang berbeda. Atau segmentasi pasar bisa diartikan segmentasi pasar adalah proses pengidentifikasian dan menganalisis para pembeli di pasar produk, menganalisia perbedaan antara pembeli di pasar.

1. Dasar-dasar dalam penetapan Segmentasi Pasar

Dalam penetapan segmentasi pasar ada beberapa hal yang menjadi dasarnya yaitu:

1. Dasar – dasar segmentasi pasar pada pasar konsumen

a. Variabel geografi, diantaranya : wilayah, ukuran daerah, ukuran kota, dan kepadatan iklim.

b. Variabel demografi, diantaranya : umur, keluarga, siklus hidup, pendapatan, pendidikan, dll

c. Variabel psikologis, diantaranya :kelas sosial, gaya hidup, dan kepribadian.

d. Variabel perilaku pembeli, diantaranya : manfaat yang dicari, status pemakai, tingkat pemakaian, status kesetiaan dan sikap pada produk.

2. Dasar – dasar segmentasi pada pasar industri

a. Tahap 1: menetapkan segmentasi makro, yaitu pasar pemakai akhir, lokasi geografis, dan banyaknya langganan.

b. Tahap 2: yaitu sikap terhadap penjual, ciri – ciri kepribadian, kualitas produk, dan pelanggan.

2. Syarat segmentasi Pasar

Ada beberapa syarat segmentasi yang efektif yaitu :

a. Dapat diukur

b.Dapat dicapai

c. Cukup besar atau cukup menguntungkan

d.Dapat dibedakan

e. Dapat dilaksanakan

3. Tingkat Segmentasi Pasar

Karena pembelian mempunyai kebutuhan dan keinginan yang unik. Setiap pembeli, berpotensi menjadi pasar yang terpisah. Oleh karena itu segmentasi pasar dapat dibangun pada beberapa tingkat yang berbeda.

a. Pemasaran massal

Pemasaran massal berfokus pada produksi massal, distribusi massal, dan promosi massal untuk produk yang sama dalam cara yang hampir sama keseluruh konsumen.

b. Pemasaran segmen

Pemasarn segmen menyadari bahwa pembeli berbeda dalam kebutuhan, persepsi, dan perilaku pembelian.

c. Pemasaran ceruk

Pemasaran ceruk (marketing niche) berfokus pada sub group didalam segmen-segmen. Suatu ceruk adalah suatu group yang didefiniskan dengan lebih sempit.

d. Pemasaran mikro

Praktek penyesuaian produk dan program pemasaran agar cocok dengan citarasa individu atau lokasi tertentu. Termasuk dalam pemasaran mikro adalah pemasaran lokal dan pemasaran individu.

4. Manfaat Segmentasi Pasar

Sedangakan manfaat dari segmentasi pasar adalah:

a. Penjual atau produsen berada dalam posisi yang lebih baik untuk memilih kesempatan- kesempatan pemasaran.

b. Penjual atau produsen dapat menggunakan pengetahuannya terhadap respon pemasaran yang berbeda-beda, sehingga dapat mengalokasikan anggarannya secara lebih tepat pada berbagai segmen.

c. Penjual atau produsen dapat mengatur produk lebih baik dan daya tarik pemasarannya

D. Menentukan Pasar Sasaran

Langkah-langkah dalam menetukan pasar sasaran yaitu :

1. Langkah pertama

Menghitung dan menilai potensi keuntungan dari berbagai segmen yang ada

2. Langkah kedua

Mencatat hasil penjualan tahun lalu dan memperkirakan untuk tahun yang akan datang.

BAB V

PERILAKU KONSUMEN

A. Pengertian Perilaku Konsumen

Perilaku konsumen merupakan tindakan-tindakan individu yang melibatkan pembelian penggunaan barang dan jasa termasuk proses pengambilan keputusan yang mendahului dan menentukan tindakan-tindakan tersebut sebagai pengalaman dengan produk, pelayanan dari sumber lainnya.

B. Faktor – Faktor yang Mempengaruhi Perilaku Konsumen

Adapun faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhi perilaku konsumen adalah :

1. Faktor kebudayaan

Faktor kebudayaan meliputi :

a. Budaya : faktor-faktor budaya memberikan pengaruhnya paling luas pada keinginan dan perilaku konsumen. Budaya (culture) adalah penyebab paling mendasar teori keinginan dan perilaku seseorang.

b. Subbudaya : setiap kebudayaan mengandung sub kebudayaan yang lebih kecil, atau sekelompok orang yang mempunyai sistem nilai yang sama berdasarkan pengalaman dan situasi kehidupan yang sama. Sub kebudayaan meliputi: kewarganegaraan, agama, ras, dan daerah gegrafis.

c. Kelas sosial : hampir setiap masyarakat memiliki beberapa bentuk struktur kelas sosial. Kelas-kelas sosial adalah bagian-bagian masyarakat yang relatif permanen dan tersusun rapi yang anggota-anggotanya mempunyai nilai-nilai, kepentingan dan perilaku yang sama.

Perilaku konsumen juga dapat dipengaruhi oleh faktor-faktor sosial, seperti kelompok kecil, keluarga serta aturan dan status sosial konsumen. Disini keluarga merupakan organisasi pembelian konsumen yang paling penting dalam masyarakat. Keputusan orang ingin membeli juga dipenggaruhi oleh karakteristik pribadi seperti umur dan tahap siklus hidup, pekerjaan, situasi ekonomui, gaya hidup dan kepribadian serta konsep diri.

Selain dari beberapa faktor diatas yang mempengaruhi perilaku konsumen juga dipengaruhi juga oleh faktor-faktor psikologis seseorang, yang meliputi motivasi, persepsi, pengetahuan dan keyakinan serta sikap.

C. Proses Pengambilan Keputusan Pembeli

a. Proses Pengambilan Keputusan Pembeli Terhadap produk Baru

Sebuah produk baru adalah barang, jasa, atau ide yang dianggap baru oleh pembeli potensial. Terkadang produk yang beredar dipasaran telah lama ada, disini konsumen dapat membuat keputusan untuk menerima / mengadopsinya. Proses adopsi adalah proses mental yang dilalui seseorang, mulai dari pengenalan pertama sampai pada penerimaan / adopsi final.

Tahap-tahap proses adopsi:

1. Sadar : konsumen menjadi sadar akan adanya produk baru, tetapi kekurangan informasi mengenainya.

2. Tertarik : konsumen akan menjadoi tertarik untuk mencari informasi mengenai produk baru.

3. Evalusi : konsumen harus mempertimbangkan apakah produk baru tersebut masuk akal atau tidak untuk dikonsumsi.

4. Mencoba : konsumen mencoba produk baru tersebut dalam skala kecil untuk meningkatkan perkiraan nilai produk tersebut.

5. Adopsi : konsumen memutuskan secara penuh dan teratur menggunakan produk baru tersebut.

b. Tipe-Tipe Perilaku Membeli

Ada empat tipe perilaku membeli, yaitu :

a. Perilaku pembelian yang kompleks

Disini konsumen mengakui keterikatan yang tinggi dalam proses pembeliannya, harga produk tinggi, jarang dibeli, memiliki resiko yang tinggi. Perilaku konsumen melalui proses tiga langkah, yaitu: pertama, mengembangkan keyakinan tentang produk tersebut. Kedua, membangun sikap, dan ketiga melakukan pilihan.

b. Perilaku pembelian yang mengurangi ketidakefisienan

Disini konsumen mengalami keterlibatan tinggi akan tetapi melihat sedikit perbedaan, diantara merek-merek. Konsumen mengunjungi beberapa tempat untuk mencari yang lebih cocok.
Perilaku pembelian karena kebiasaan

Disini konsumen rendah sekali dalam proses pembelian karena tidak ada perbedaan nyata diantara berbagai merek dan harga barang relatif rendah
Perilaku pembelian yang mencari keragaman

Disini keterlibatan konsumen yang rendah akan dihadapkan pada berbagai pemilihan merek.

c. Tahap-Tahap Proses Membeli

Tahap-tahap dalam proses membeli mwliputi :

a. Pengenalan kebutuhan/masalah

Disini orang yang akan memasarkan produk meneliti mengenai apa yang dibutuhkan, apa yang menyebabkan semua itu muncul dan mengapa seseorang membutuhkan sesuatu. Seorang pemasar akan mengenalkan pada konsumen agar lebih tertarik.

b. Pencarian informasi

Sumber informasi konsumen terbagi dalam empat kelompok, yaitu :

1. Sumber pribadi, meliputi: keluarga, teman-teman, tetangga, dan kenalan.

2. Sumber niaga, meliputi : periklanan, petugas penjualan, penjual kemasan dan pemajangan.

3. Sumber umum, meliputi : media massa dan organisasi konsumen.

4. Sumber pengalaman, meliputi: pernah menangani, menguji, dan mempergunakan produk.

c. Pencarian alternatif

Terdapat lima konsep dasar bagi pemasar dalam penilaian alternatif konsumen, yaitu :
Sifat-sifat produk, apa yang menjadi ciri-ciri khusus dan perhatian konsumen terhadap produk atau jasa tersebut.
Pemasar lebih memperhatikan pentingnya ciri-ciri produk daripada penonjolan Ciri-ciri produk.
Kepercayaan konsumen terhadap ciri merek yang menonjol
Fungsi kemanfaatan, yaitu bagaimana konsumen mengharapkan kepuasan yang diperoleh dari produk dengan tingkat alternatif yang berbeda-beda setiap hari
Bagaimana prosedur penilaian yang dilakukan konsumen dari sekian banyak ciri-ciri barang.

d. Keputusan membeli

Ada dua faktor yang menyebabkan seseorang mengambil keputusan untuk

membeli, yaitu :
Sikap orang lain : keputusan membeli itu banyak dipengaruhi oleh teman-teman, tetangga, atau siapa saja yang dipercayai
Faktor-faktor situasi yang tidak terduga : seperti faktor harga pendapatan

Tahun Depan, Gaji PNS Naik 7 Persen

noreply@blogger.com (sourceSite) — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 15:08:00 +0000

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com — Presiden Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono mengatakan, pemerintah berencana menyesuaikan gaji dan pensiun pokok TNI, Polri, pegawai negeri sipil (PNS) rata-rata sebesar 7 persen pada 2013.

Penyesuaian ini bagian dari komitmen pemerintah untuk memberikan perhatian pada perbaikan kesejahteraan aparatur negara, baik PNS maupun TNI dan Polri, serta para pensiunan.

"Pemerintah juga merencanakan kenaikan gaji para hakim ke tingkat yang lebih baik, sepadan dengan tugas dan tanggung jawabnya. Dengan pokok-pokok kebijakan itu, alokasi anggaran belanja pegawai dalam RAPBN 2013 kita rencanakan sebesar Rp 241,1 triliun," kata Presiden ketika menyampaikan keterangan pemerintah atas RUU RAPBN Tahun Anggaran 2013 beserta Nota Keuangannya di depan Rapat Paripurna DPR RI, Jakarta, Kamis (16/8/2012).

Perbaikan kesejahteraan aparatur negara ini diharapkan dapat mendorong berjalannya reformasi birokrasi dan tata kelola pemerintahan. Presiden mengatakan, belanja pegawai pada 2013 meningkat Rp 28,9 trilun atau 13,6 persen dari pagu belanja pegawai dalam APBN-P 2012.

"Dalam rangka menuntaskan pelaksanaan program Reformasi Birokrasi pada Kementerian Negara/Lembaga, peningkatan alokasi belanja pegawai itu, juga kita rencanakan untuk anggaran remunerasi," kata Presiden.

Editor :
Tri Wahono

sumber: http://bisniskeuangan.kompas.com/read/2012/08/16/2219314/Tahun.Depan.Gaji.PNS.Naik.7.Persen