This paper argues that fundamental weaknesses in Asian financial systems that had been masked by rapid growth were at the root of East Asia's 1997 currency and financial crisis. These weaknesses were caused by the lack of incentives for effective risk management created by implicit or explicit...

We apply Becker's (1983) model of lobbying to show that liberalization of foreign bank entry may result from political changes and a fall in domestic bank efficiency caused by lack of competition, which raises the costs to domestic banks of restricting foreign bank entry. We also show that in...

This paper uses non-parametric tests to provide a description of the "stylized facts" associated with episodes of speculative pressure in foreign exchange markets in Pacific Basin Economies, and to see whether these "stylized facts" appear to be broadly consistent with the alternative...

This paper analyzes the role of money, credit, trade and competitiveness variables in signaling currency crises in a sample of East Asian and Latin American countries over the period 1972:01 - 1997:10. Bivariate tests suggest that money and credit, as well as trade and competitiveness variables,...

This paper assesses the relationship between money and credit and episodes of sharp depreciation in East Asia by (i) examining growth rates of money and credit variables around depreciation episodes; (ii) estimating the impact of money and credit variables on the probability of a share...