"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 1997-1999 East Asian crisis is an interesting case for studying the determinants of distress and closure of financial institutions. Of a sample of 283 financial institutions from Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand, 120 experienced distress, and by July 1999, 38 were closed. We find that traditional, CAMEL-type financial data for 1996 help predict distress and closure. quot;Connectionsquot; - with industrial groups or influential families - increased the likelihood of distress, however, suggesting that supervisors had granted selective prior forbearance from prudential regulations. Since closure was more, not less, likely with connections, the closure processes themselves appear transparent. We also find evidence of quot;too big to failquot; policies.

Economists from the US, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and a few other countries--none Asian--assess the causes and consequences of the East Asian crisis of 1997-98, focusing especially on the interplay of economic and political forces. In eight papers and a summary of a roundtable discussion, primarily from a March 1999 conference at Columbia University, they consider such aspects as the anatomy of the emerging market disease, the politics of moral hazard, the US role in the long Asian crisis of 1990-2000, and from higher risk to risk aversion and the danger of protectionism. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

Two Crises, Different Outcomes examines East Asian policy reactions to the two major crises of the last fifteen years: the global financial crisis of 2008–9 and the Asian financial crisis of 1997–98. The calamity of the late 1990s saw a massive meltdown concentrated in East Asia. In stark contrast, East Asia avoided the worst effects of the Lehman Brothers collapse, incurring relatively little damage when compared to the financial devastation unleashed on North America and Europe. Much had changed across the intervening decade, not least that China rather than Japan had become the locomotive of regional growth, and that the East Asian economies had taken numerous steps to buffer their financial structures and regulatory regimes. This time Asia avoided disaster; it bounced back quickly after the initial hit and has been growing in a resilient fashion ever since. The authors of this book explain how the earlier financial crisis affected Asian economies, why government reactions differed so widely during that crisis, and how Asian economies weathered the Great Recession. Drawing on a mixture of single-country expertise and comparative analysis, they conclude by assessing the long-term prospects that Asian countries will continue their recent success.

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.

This is the first systematic attempt to explore the causal relationship between financial market reform and financial crisis in an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective. It examines the political underpinnings of financial policy-change and provides an in-depth analysis of market liberalisation processes and their impact on the economic turmoil of 1997-98 in Korea and Thailand. The common crisis stemmed from divergent reform patterns and originated from dissimilar institutional deficiencies and political constraints. The book will be essential reading for both policy-makers and academics concerned with national governance in an era of globalisation.

THIS PATHBREAKING Work analyzes the evolution of China's financial reforms since 1979. China's reformers have stressed the construction of a more diverse, flexible, and competitive financial system as a crucial element of China's economic reform program. The authors assess the theory and practice of financial reform in light of China's specific characteristics as a large, developing country that still claims to be pursuing the goal of establishing a new form of "socialist" market economy. The authors utilize two approaches. First, they place the overall design and trajectory of. financial reform since 1979 within a broad comparative framework of alternative strategies of financial reform and financial systems. Second, they use a political economy perspective to explore the complex interactions among the political and economic actors— individual, group, or institutional—that affect reform outcomes. Integrating these two approaches, the authors conclude by assessing future directions for feasible and desirable financial reform in China.