External Debt and Exchange Rate Overshooting: The Case of Selected East Asian Countries

The accumulations of foreign debts had indeed been at a rapid phase, particularly during the last few years leading to the outbreak of the 1997 financial crises in the four most severely effected economies, namely Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Korea. Interestingly, during the same period, the rates of overshooting of these East Asian currencies have also been found to increase considerably. The objective of this paper is to evaluate whether the rapid accumulation of external debts, especially since 1994, has contributed to the overshooting of the East Asian countries’ currencies starting late 1997.