The Thai Currency Crisis: Fracture in a Fixed Exchange Rate Regime

Abstract If the financial press had been paying attention to some crucial barometers of currency instability in Thailand last year, the ensuing crisis in Asia would perhaps not have been so much of a surprise. On July 2,1997, the Thai government allowed the Baht to float against the Dollar for the first time in a decade. As we all now know, this effective devaluation set of a train of events which would shock all of the Asian economies which had hitherto enjoyed unqualified growth and prosperity for the last several years.