During the Asian crisis, some crisis-hit economies raised domestic interest rates persistently in an effort to appreciate their currencies. Although Asian currencies eventually stabilized, it is still debated whether high interest rates contributed to the restoration of stability. Correlation...

The malignancy of the Asian crisis comes from its characteristics as twin financial crises: currency crisis (external) and banking crisis (internal). It is a capitalaccount crisis combined with domestic credit contraction, as distinct from the traditional current-account crisis. The new nature...

Japan's macroeconomic problem has yet to be properly diagnosed. Throughout the 1990s, policy makers could not decide on the proper macro economic measures to combat the country's severe economic slump. We propose a unified explanation, with deep historical roots, of why aggregate private demand...

Authored by eminent scholars, the volume aims to generate interest and debate among policymakers, practitioners, and researchers on the complexity of learning and catch-up, particularly for twenty-first century late-late developers. The volume explores technological learning at the firm level,...

Exchange rate rigidity is often cited as one of the primary causes of Asia's crisis. However, measured by real effective exchange rates (inflation-adjusted and tradeweighted exchange rates) using consumer prices or wholesale prices, no serious overvaluation is detected in the worst-hit economies...