The Asia Pacific Regional Economic Crisis: A Diagnosis

Abstract

The Asian crisis, which exploded in Thailand in July 1997 initially, spilled to the other ASEAN countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, and Philippines) and later it spreads to Korea and even crossing the continent to Russia and Brazil. The chronological pattern seems to indicate the contagious behaviour of the crisis. However, the sequential economic down‐turns that occurred in the Asia Pacific do look like a contagion effect. The idea that currency speculators contributed to the depth of the crisis is agreeable but to conclude that they are the roots of the problem would be misleading. This paper argued that the roots of the problems lie in current account deficit and loss of competitiveness, and moral hazard and over‐investment This paper also argued that the currency crisis is a symptom and not the cause of the Asian crisis.

Citation

Azlan Ghazali, N. (2001), "The Asia Pacific Regional Economic Crisis: A Diagnosis", Humanomics, Vol. 17 No. 1, pp. 156-179. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb018867