Indonesia over the twentieth century experienced two periods of sustained growth in per capita GDP. One was during the first three decades of the twentieth century, and the second was from the late 1960s until 1997. Both these growth episodes were followed by growth collapses. The paper looks at the reasons for the growth collapses of the early 1930s and the late 1990s, and contrasts the policy responses, paying particular attention to fiscal and monetary policy and exchange rate policy. The paper concludes with a discussion of the policy debates provoked by the 1997 crisis, and contrasts these with the reactions of the Dutch colonial government in the late 1930s.