Category: Research

This is something that may interest precisely zero members of our reading audience.  As it is, it only really interests 50% of the authors.

When you learn econometrics or other types of statistics as a graduate student, you normally end up having one of two things happen to you.  In the one instance, you learn one software package very well to fit the types of research questions that you like to ask.  In the other instance, you learn a whole bunch of software packages to reflect the fact that you have eclectic research interests.  The problem, as you might imagine, is that some statistical packages are extremely good at doing some things, but almost none are good at doing everything.  I (TP) have encounted this problem often.  If I want to study time series cross sectional data, Stata is the way to go.  For survey data, SPSS is king.  But one at least one occasion I have been faced with a problem of generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH), which is almost impossible without a software package normally used for financial analysis called EViews.  I have to learn to use all of them.  It is not unheard of for people to tailor their research to the types of questions that their preferred statistical software can answer.

None of this would be a real problem if statistical software were free or easy to learn to use.  But neither of those are true.  Which is why it is particularly unfortunate that no one in my graduate education encouraged me to learn R.  After four years, I have finally decided to make the switch to R, which is not only extremely powerful, but FREE.  It also, like good open-source software, does not take up much hard drive space.  It’s a little challenging to learn at first, mainly because it is command oriented (unlike other programs that spoil you with fancy pull down menus).  But it is no harder to use than the other very powerful command oriented statistical program, Gauss, which I had to learn, and which is quite expensive if you want the version that handles lots of data.

And also, as is the case for other open-source software, there is a huge community of R users who write libraries for all sorts of estimators and problems.  It took me 2 seconds to find a GARCH library that is just as easy to use as EViews.  When I am a professor, my students will be contributing to the revolution by using R.  If you are one of our readers who struggles with econometrics software–and I know that you are out there–may I strongly urge you to look into R.  Imagine, never having to pay for stats software again.

(Shhh, but it also has the added benefit of making you look smarter simply because you use it.  Using Gauss does the same, but R is free.  This much like composing your papers in LaTeX instead of Microsoft Word, which I am almost positive increases your chances of publication.)

I (TP) was only scratching the surface of my difficulties with bibliographies.  Malay, Indian, and Chinese naming conventions really aren’t that hard to master once you learn the rules.  And fortunately, just by looking at the name it is almost always possible to tell what rules to use: Chinese names, Indian (usually Tamil) names, and Malay names are significantly different enough not to confuse you.

Indonesia is the real problem.  I’m sure that someone who has spent a lifetime studying the various cultures and languages of Indonesia would understand things, but I do not.  The issue stems from the fact that different ethnic groups across the archipelago have different naming conventions.  And, from looking at the name, you cannot normally what that ethnic group is.  Javanese is the exception–if it’s got an "o" at the end of it and it starts with "Su/Soe", you can be sure it’s Javanese.  Then there are Balinese, which are easy to spot because there is a pattern.  In Balinese, your name is determined by gender and birth order.  If you are a boy, your first name is I.  If you are a girl, your first name is Ni.  If you are the first born, your second name is Wayan.  If you are the second born, your second name is Made or Nengah, and so on.  Then you get your name.  So someone named "I Made Budiana" is the male second child named Budiana.  You alphabetize starting with the first name.  Of course, this is only for the common caste; higher caste levels have more complicated names.

But there’s another layer of complexity.  Some Muslim Indonesians–but not all of them–have dropped their ethnic naming conventions and adopted Islamic naming conventions.  In such a situation, it’s like Malays in Malaysia: first name is given name, second name is father’s name.

However, we are usually not so lucky.  There are Indonesians (usually Javanese) with only one name, like Soeharto and Sukarno.  There are Indonesians with two first names and no last name, like Soeharto’s son Bambang Trihatmodjo. There are Indonesians with just a first name and a family name, like Emil Salim or Rizal Mallarangeng.  There are Indonesians with a first name and a clan name, like Anwar Nasution or Djisman Simandjuntak.  There are Indonesians with a first name and a patronymic, like Sukarno’s daughter, Megawati Sukarnoputri. 

So, what you need to know is not only the name, but what the name means.  There is no rule besides that.  It’s good to be able to recognize Minangkabau clan names like Nasution and Simandjuntak, but there are many more that I don’t know.  You just have to know, for example, that Bambang Trihatmodjo is Soeharto’s son and that Trihatmodjo is a descriptive second part of a first name, not a last name.  For bibliographies, these are the rules.

On a related note, here’s a bit of information I learned about people with Abdul in the names, and why you refer to someone named Abdul Razak Hussein as "Abdul Razak" or "Razak", not just "Abdul".  Abdul means "servant of", and in Muslim names, get combined with one of the ninety-nine words used to describe Allah in the Qur’an.  So, for example, in the Qur’an Allah is referred to as "al-Razzaq", the Sustainer.  The name "Abdul Razak" means "servant of the Sustainer".  "Abdul Jabbar" means "servant of the Compeller", and so on.  Which is why you would never just call someone "Abdul": it’s incomplete.  This is good stuff to know so you don’t make a fool of yourself, and it’s also the type of stuff that no one ever sits down and tells you.