Between famine and freedom: Food prices during the Indonesian War of Independence, 1945–9

Abstract This paper investigates how the Indonesian War of Independence (1945‒9) influenced staple food prices, and how fluctuations in those prices, in turn, shaped the trajectory and dynamics of the conflict. We compiled a dataset comprising more than 8600 prices for staple foods covering the entire Indonesian archipelago from 1939‒49, allowing us to estimate the effects of wartime conditions and the main Dutch military campaigns on food prices. We find that wartime price peaks were much more severe and prolonged than studies previously assumed, both in and outside Java. We show that the first large military operation, Operation Product, was partly motivated by high rice prices and demonstrate that these prices were significantly reduced across Java and Sumatra after the end of the military campaign. We then use a second dataset on wartime wages to estimate nutritional standards. These combined data suggest a very low nutritional status of urban unskilled wage labourers – often below the family subsistence level – in 1946 and the first half of 1947. Our results point to broader entitlement failures driven by weak market connectivity amidst military and economic warfare.