The English language material on the contemporary Indonesian economy is modest in comparison with that of India, China and Asia's NIEs. Nevertheless, scholars can no longer lament, as Bruce Glassburner did one-quarter of a century ago, in the introduction to his The Economy of Indonesia (1971), ‘… the minor role to which the economics profession of the world has relegated Indonesia’.

There are three journals published on the Indonesian economy, Ekonomi dan Keuangan Indonesia, Jurnal Ekonomi Indonesia (both published in Jakarta, and bi-lingual), and the Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies (Canberra). Important edited collections have been published over the past 15 years, including (Booth ed. 1992), Booth and McCawley (eds. 1981), and Papanek (1980). During the past decade, specialist books on agriculture, such as Pearson et al. (1991) and several others, have appeared, while the list on industry includes Poot et al. (1990). The World Bank publishes an annual report on the economy, for limited readership but widely Circulated, as well as many other specialist reports. Then there are those books with a regional flavour, both general in nature (Hill ed., 1989) and focused (Dick, Fox and Mackie eds, 1993, on East Java). In addition, Indonesia is now regularly the focus of articles both in regional journals, such as the ASEAN Economic Bulletin, Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, the Journal of Asian Business, and in international journals.

But the literature on the Indonesian economy is still rather limited for a country which ranks as the fourth most populous in the world, as the largest Islamic nation, and as the dominant country in Southeast Asia.