This study not only examines the countries most severely affected by the Asian financial crisis, but also draws lessons from those whose economies escaped the worst problems. The author focuses on the political economy of the crisis, emphasizing long-standing problems and crisis management tactics.

The Asian crisis has sparked a thoroughgoing reappraisal of current international financial norms, the policy prescriptions of the International Monetary Fund, and the adequacy of the existing financial architecture. To draw proper policy conclusions from the crisis, it is necessary to understand exactly what happened and why from both a political and an economic perspective. In this study, renowned political scientist Stephan Haggard examines the political aspects of the crisis in the countries most affected—Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Haggard focuses on the political economy of the crisis, emphasizing the longer-run problems of moral hazard and corruption, as well as the politics of crisis management and the political fallout that ensued. He looks at the degree to which each government has rewoven the social safety net and discusses corporate and financial restructuring and greater transparency in business-government relations. Professor Haggard provides a counterpoint to the analysis by examining why Singapore, Taiwan, and the Philippines escaped financial calamity.

The authors analyze the reasons why the crisis affected the nations of Asia in radically different ways. They also consider whether the crisis indicates a radical change in Asia's economic future.

"In the East Asian crisis, "connections" - with industrial groups or influential families - increased the probability of distress for financial institutions. Connections also made closure more, not less, likely, suggesting that the closure processes themselves were transparent. But larger institutions, although more likely to be distressed, were less likely to be closed, suggesting a "too big to fail" policy"--Cover.

The financial crisis that swept across East Asia during 1997-1998 was devastating not only in its economic impact but also in its social and political effects. The explosive growth and sociopolitical modernization that had powered the region for much of the preceding decade suddenly were dramatically interrupted. East Asia is economically outperforming the rest of the developing world once again and has become a leading force in the global economy. In the wake of the crisis, East Asia changed in important ways. Crisis as Catalyst contains assessments of these changes-both ephemeral and permanent- by a wide range of specialists in Asian economics and politics.The crisis, as the contributors to this volume show, catalyzed changes across political, corporate, and social arenas both in the countries hit hard by the crisis and in others throughout the region. The authors of Crisis as Catalyst examine what has changed (as well as what has not changed) in East Asia since the crisis, explain these variations, and reflect on the long-term significance of these developments.

This book analyzes the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1999. In addition to the issues of financial system restructuring, export-led recovery, crony capitalism, and competitiveness in Asian manufacturing, it examines six key Asian economies--China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand. The book makes clear that there is little particularly Asian about the Asian financial crisis. The generic character of the crisis became clear during 1998, when it reached Russia, South Africa, and Brazil. The spread of the crisis reflects the rapid arrival of global capitalism in a world economy not used to the integration of the advanced and developing countries. The book makes recommendations for reform, including the formation of regional monetary bodies, the establishment of an international bankruptcy system, the democratization of international organizations, the infusion of public money to revive the financial and corporate sectors in Pacific Asia, and stronger supervision over financial institutions. The book emphasizes a mismatch in Pacific Asia between investment in physical hardware (e.g., factories and machinery) and in social software (e.g., scientific research centers and administrative and judiciary systems). In a world of growing international competitiveness, concerns over governance will weigh increasingly heavily on unreformed Asian countries. The long-term competitiveness of Asia rests on its getting its institutions right.

The Asian financial crisis of 1997-98 shook the foundations of the global economy. What began as a localised currency crisis soon engulfed the entire Asian region. What went wrong and how did the Asian economies, long considered 'miracles', respond? How did the United States, Japan and other G-7 countries react to the crisis? What role did the IMF play? Why did China, which suffers from many of the same structural problems responsible for the crisis, remain conspicuously insulated from the turmoil raging in its midst? What explains Asia's remarkable recovery just three years after the crisis? In what fundamental ways did the Asian crisis serve as a catalyst to the current thinking about the 'new international financial architecture'? What lessons can be learnt from the crisis by other emerging economies? This book provides answers to all the above questions and more. It gives a comprehensive account of how the international economic order operates, examines its strengths and weaknesses, and what needs to be done to fix it. The book will be vital to students of economics, international political economy, Asian and development studies.

Offering a coherent overview of the historical and institutional context of enduring patterns in East Asian political economy, this updated and expanded second edition textbook explores the dramatic regional and international transformations that this key region has faced since the 2008 financial crisis.

In the late 1990s, Korea, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia experienced a series of major financial crises evinced by widespread bank insolvencies and currency depreciations, as well as sharp declines in gross domestic production. This sudden disruption of the Asian economic `miracle' astounded many observers around the world, raised questions about the stability of the international financial system and caused widespread fear that this financial crisis would spread to other countries. What has been called the Asian crisis followed a prolonged slump in Japan dating from the early 1980s and came after the Mexican currency crisis in the mid-1990s. Thus, the Asian crisis became a major policy concern at the International Monetary Fund as well as among developed countries whose cooperation in dealing with such financial crises is necessary to maintain the stability and efficiency of global financial markets. This book collects the papers and discussions delivered at an October 1998 Conference co-sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the International Monetary Fund to examine the causes, implications and possible solutions to the crises. The conference participants included a broad range of academic, industry, and regulatory experts representing more than thirty countries. Topics discussed included the origin of the individual crises; early warning indicators; the role played by the global financial sector in this crisis; how, given an international safety net, potential risks of moral hazard might contribute to further crises; the lessons for the international financial system to be drawn from the Asian crisis; and what the role of the International Monetary Fund might be in future rescue operations. Because the discussions of these topics include a wide diversity of critical views and opinions, the book offers a particularly rich presentation of current and evolving thinking on the causes and preventions of international banking and monetary crises. The book promises to be one of the timeliest as well as one of the most complete treatments of the Asian financial crisis and its implications for future policymaking.

This new edition updates its precedessor and uses the Asian economic crisis to indicate how theoretical differences identified in the South-East Asian boom were brought into even sharper relief in the analysis of the crisis and recovery strategies.