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...