Credit rating agencies (CRAs) bear some responsibility for the financial crisis that started in 2007 and remains ongoing. This is acknowledged by policymakers, market participants, and by the agencies themselves. It soon became clear that, given the depth of the crisis, CRAs would not be able to...

Currently, the United States is suffering from a financial crisis. Japan also struggled with a financial crisis from the late 1990's to the early 2000's. What implications can be drawn from these crisis experiences of the two largest economies in the world? This paper examines, from the...

The new-style currency crises that have inflicted a number of developing and emerging economies of late are characterized by sudden stops in capital inflows and adverse balance sheet effects. Given the potential high costs of these crises, there remains an ongoing debate on how they might best...

Almost all existing studies on the causes, consequences and policy implications of the economic and financial crisis faced by East Asia have provided only a cursory discussion of broad data at best, or have fallen into the trap of merely stating the weaknesses in the economies as a matter of...

This paper reviews recent state interventions in financial crises and draws lessons for crisis management. A number of areas are identified where crisis management could be strengthened, including with regard to the tools and instruments used to involve the private sector in crisis resolution...

The global financial crisis severely impacted Asia from late 2008 to early 2009 (Figure 1). Although the initial impact appeared limited, the region was directly hit when the crisis spread to the real sector and caused the volume of world trade to collapse. According to the latest projection by...

In the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis, the issue of the choice of exchange rate regime for East Asian (EA) countries re-emerged. The crisis had demonstrated, amongst other things, that unilateral exchange rate regimes (including de facto dollar pegging) hadnt coped very well in the...

The depth and breadth of the East Asian financial crisis has added a sense of acute urgency for some concrete and credible measures by policy-makers to revitalise the Japanese economy. While steps to be taken for the long-run competitiveness and economic revitalisation of the Japanese economy...

High ratios of external debt to GDP in selected Asian countries have contributed to the initiation, propagation, and severity of the financial and economic crises in recent years, reflecting runaway fiscal deficits and excessive foreign borrowing by the private sector. Applying the formal...

Since the Asian crisis it has been recognized that exchange rate and monetary policy strategies must involve a fairly high element of flexibility rather than a single-minded defense of a particular rate. One way this flexibility might be introduced is by a country adopting an open economy...