Anticipated stimulus policies enacted perhaps in response to a crisis can motivate precautionary behaviour during the preceding expansion. Ex post stimulus can be ex ante prudential. Prudential fiscal stimulus both speeds up economic recoveries, and prevents crises from occurring in the first...

This paper reviews the economic conditions in central Asia at the time of the Russian financial crisis of August 1998; the channels by which the crisis was transmitted to the central Asian region; and the policy responses. The paper concludes that, while real exchange rates of central Asian national...