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A call for papers on global financial crises is presented.

This paper introduces the special collection on East Asia and the global crisis. After justifying why a focus on East Asia is appropriate, it draws out the main themes that run through the individual contributions. These are the extent to which the region is decoupling from the global economy (or the West), the increasing legitimacy of statist alternatives to neoliberal development strategies, and the impact of crises on the definition of 'region' and the functioning of regional institutions and governance mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All economies experience peaks and troughs in their business cycles. This paper examines eight East Asian economies, employing a Bayesian dynamic factor model that allows the decomposition of aggregate shocks into country-specific, regional and world common business cycles. It therefore allows the identification of causes for major events experienced by these countries. Empirical evidences show that country-specific factors are the most important in determining the major events for all the countries examined here, implying the need for each country to rely more heavily on its own independent counter-cyclical policies. Although the regional factor plays a less important role than the country-specific factor, it accounts for a sizeable share in the output fluctuation of the region. The regional factor is most prevalent for Singapore, Korea, Malaysia and Thailand, indicating that a regional coordinated policy is rather more effective for these economies to respond to disturbances. The world factor explains only around 7% of the output variation in East Asia, which might explain why the East Asian economies are relatively insulated from the recent global financial crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the notion that subjective economic perceptions as well as objective economic conditions affect electoral outcomes has long been explored in advanced democracies and new democracies, evidence of the link between the economy and elections has been rarely found in East Asian countries. As economic issues have become salient since the 1997 financial crisis, political leaders' capacity to manage the economy has become one of the most important criteria in electoral choice in East Asia. This paper examines how economic issues influenced the results of the 2007 presidential election in South Korea. By making use of the 2007 Presidential Election Panel Study, this study examines the continuity of and changes in the Korean voters' electoral behavior. This study describes the political situation in the post-1997 financial crisis period under two liberal governments in Korea and introduces the processes and characteristics of electoral campaigns in the 2007 presidential election. This paper then explores the link between the economy and vote choice, focusing on whether economic issues were salient among the electorate, whether retrospective or prospective economic voting was prevalent among Koreans, and how the voters supported Lee Myung Bak across age groups, regions, and parties in the 2007 presidential election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given its potentially global significance and the attention that there tends to be towards things that go wrong, it is hardly surprising that most of the literature dealing with economic events in East Asia during recent years has concentrated on the crisis period of 1997 and 1998. This work has sought to gain a better understanding of why such crises occur and how best they can be handled if and when they do. Less attention has been paid to the more recent post crisis period. To what extent and within what time frame did countries in the region recover from the crisis, and, if there has been a recovery, can it be sustained? Drawing on the available evidence, this paper attempts to answer these questions. By implication, however, it also has something to say about the vulnerability of the region to subsequent crises and briefly considers what needs to be done to reduce this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While rejecting arguments that locate the blame for the East Asian economic crisis in simplistic notions of `crony capitalism', this paper supplements analyses which have focused on the role of international finance capital. It does so by suggesting that there were real internal causes of the crisis in the countries most affected and that these were intimately associated with asymmetrical state institutional capacities to mediate between the domestic and international economies. Noting that the symptoms of crisis in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Hong Kong were quite different from those in Korea, the paper suggests that these differences were not coincidental. Rather they are traceable to these asymmetric state capacities. Inter alia, the paper explores the role of Overseas Chinese conglomerates and state actors in the development of structurally weak economies in the Southeast Asian countries, and asks whether the `fundamentals' of the real economies in question (including Korea) were indeed robust, as some commentators have argued. Analysing recent data on innovation and terms of trade, the paper answers in the negative. Throughout, the paper emphasizes the substantial institutional differences between the East Asian crisis countries so as to combat accounts be they orthodox or radical - which advance monadic explanations for the turmoil. In so doing it insists that part of the explanation of why the crisis emerged in Thailand, Indonesia, Korea, etc., must involve an appreciation of why it has not (or at least not yet) emerged in Taiwan and Singapore. The paper, however, is not merely an account of the differing internal causes of the crisis. Ultimately it is a discourse on the uneven presence and differing forms of `developmental states' in the region, and on their past, present and future possibilities for effective economic governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an overview of the April 2003 issue of the 'Cambridge Review of International Affairs.' Collection of papers on the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998; Inclusion of political-cultural factors; Asian economic crisis as threshold event in modern international affairs; Return to high rates of economic growth.

In recent years, one driver behind the promotion of home ownership in Western countries has been the belief that owner-occupied housing assets provide a means to build up individual welfare security, potentially offsetting pension shortfalls in retirement. In contrast, many developed East Asian societies have both long focussed on advancing ‘asset’ or ‘property-based welfare’ systems as well as experienced the late-1990s Asian Financial Crisis which forced changes in housing and welfare practices. This paper examines how home ownership and asset-based welfare fared in these contexts and the lessons to be learned. It begins by considering the role of owner-occupied housing assets in different welfare regimes before empirically examining how asset-based welfare systems have been realized. It then considers how East Asian home ownership and asset-based welfare systems have stood-up to economic crises. The final section considers what the East Asian experiences contribute to an understanding of the housing assets–welfare relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the current global financial crisis with the one that struck East Asia a little more than a decade ago. The analysis reveals some striking and surprising differences between the two periods. Whereas the first crisis had a catalytic impact on Asian regionalism this one may not. Despite East Asia generally and China in particular seeming to emerge stronger relative to the US from the current crisis, the impact of the second crisis on Europe reminds us that there is nothing inevitable about the course of regional integration. Not only are Europe's economic problems likely to diminish whatever enthusiasm there was for initiatives such as a common currency in Asia, but China may also find itself increasingly playing a global rather than a regional role. In short, crises can have very different impacts and provide an important insight into the interconnected dynamics of regional and global processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite diversity in market and policy frameworks, late twentieth century housing systems across industrialised economies in East Asia became increasingly focused on facilitating home ownership. Governments became characteristically interventionist in the housing sector, which was assumed to play broad economic, political and welfare roles. Despite the influence of the public sector, housing provision was largely commodified rather than de-commodified. Home ownership was perceived to enhance economic development, social solidarity and the asset base of family centred welfare provision. This view was bolstered by house price increases during an era of rapid economic growth. Expanding owner-occupied housing sectors ostensibly offset underdeveloped citizenship rights and public spending, and stimulated increases in middle-class home-owning households, who were provided an economic stake in 'developmentalist' government objectives. The Asian Economic Crisis of 1997/98 however, strongly impacted on property markets across the region leading to increasing divergence in approaches to home ownership and welfare provision. This paper examines housing systems and policy regimes in Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong to illustrate new strategies that have emerged in the twenty-first century that reflect diversifying orientations towards housing policies and property-based welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information about the role of East Asian markets on the forest industry of Canada. The second half of the 20th century saw a consolidation of western Canada's forest industry. Japan's forest product market had a strong influence on the development of the coastal industry of British Columbia. The economic downturn in Asia that occurred in 1997 and 1998 has limited the potential of western Canada to export forest products to the East Asia region, and therefore, there has been a decline in Asia's influence on the industry in that area.

In the wake of the economic and political crises that gripped parts of East Asia from 1997 onwards, much attention was given to the possible reform of the region's distinctive political practices and economic structures. Especially prominent in this debate were key international financial institutions (IFIs) like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and - more subtly - the US Treasury Department. Yet many observers claimed that the IFIs themselves were in need of reform, as was the international financial architecture they helped create and manage. Significantly, however, no serious attempt has been made to reform the international financial system despite concern about its impact on the region generally and during the crisis in particular. This paper reviews the central issues in the debate over financial sector reforms, and argues that while further liberalization continues to be urged upon East Asia, substantial reform of the IFIs or the international financial sector is unlikely given existent patterns of political and economic interests, despite continuing doubts about their benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is increasingly apparent that the Asian economic crisis has also led to a serious ideological crisis in the West. Before the collapse there was broad agreement among Western orthodox economists that developing countries should pursue a set of economic policies, often referred to as the 'Washington consensus', which included financial sector liberalisation, privatisation of state-owned enterprises, fiscal discipline and trade, exchange rate and foreign investment deregulation. Since the collapse, however, this consensus has broken down. This paper examines the emergence of the new so-called post-Washington consensus, with its emphasis on governance and social capital. The lexicon of the new policy paradigm underlying this new consensus includes civil society, safety nets, and, especially, governance, to be added to the conventional Washington terminology of open markets, deregulation, liberalisation and structural adjustment. Our central thesis is that this new post-Washington consensus is an attempt to place more emphasis on the political and institutional foundations for programmes of structural reform. However, it is also a kind of politics of antipolitics that attempts to insulate economic institutions from the process of political bargaining. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a striking recent upsurge of oppositional political activity in East Asia, including labour and popular responses to the Asian economic crisis. This is mirrored in the policy recommendations and campaigns advanced by Asian and European NGOs that provide an alternative vision for sustainable economic and social development. The paper explores the significance of politics 'from below' for current efforts to institutionalize interregional cooperation through the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM). It asks whether it is justifiable to identify this development as comprising emergent realities of 'regional civil society' and 'transnational democracy'. The first part outlines the theoretical debate between neoliberal, liberal-pluralist and critical-structural approaches to civil society's attempts to respond to processes of 'globalization'. The second part examines the role of both elite social movements and developmental NGOs as actors seeking to address the current ASEM agenda. It identifies key tensions in the responses of civil society actors: between elite inclusion, accommodation and outright opposition. This is followed, in the third part, by a critique of current NGO response to ASEM focusing on: (i) the practical dilemmas of their engagement with the emerging multilateralist agenda; (ii) the privileging of a liberal-pluralist conception of civil society that dominates NGOs' 'rethinking' of their strategic goals; and (iii) a misreading of the globalization discourse that serves to obscure the ways in which capitalism is actually being reconfigured in our era. The main conclusion is that movements of political opposition have acted to increase public participation in and criticism of interregional policy discussions. However, it argues that capitalist social relations remain a massive obstacle to the kinds of demands for social justice made by associations of civil society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various articles within the issue on topics including correlation of individual sectors in Korean economy, impact of banking industry concentration on financial stability and impact of financial crises in East Asia.

This article argues for a pluralist, integrative, ‘post-Washington Consensus’ view of an East Asian financial architecture in the post-global crisis world. What are the key architectural problems and how might such problems be resolved? The article aims to address these general questions and to develop a policy-applicable theory about a post-crisis regional financial architecture by focusing on the case of East Asia. The generic problems identified in the study include sovereignty, power struggles, structural diversity, collective action problems and weak regional identity and norms. Herein, I present a conceptual model of logically possible solutions to such problems, which comprises principled minimalism and host regulation, decomposition and issue linkage, and informal intermediaries. The proposed solutions reflect and reinforce the normative fragmentation and decentralization of global financial governance in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

After the devastating experience of the Asian financial crisis more than ten years ago, East Asia launched regional economic cooperation efforts. East Asia's mixed response to the global financial crisis a decade later, however, reveals how certain impetuses that gave rise to unified efforts to regional institution building in East Asia at the time of the AFC derived, fundamentally, from the region's defensive desire as it positioned itself within the harsh global economic and political environment of that time. The GFC triggered reorganization of global economic governance by discrediting neoliberal principles, introducing a new global governance structure and allowing reliance of domestic stimuli for economic recovery. Those shifts, in turn, led to the loss of East Asia's basic mandate towards regional cooperation. In other words, the focus of solving the region's economic vulnerability has now moved from regional arrangement to national and global stages. In particular, the East Asian governments now see less of a need to counterweight the predominant neoliberal voice through unified regional voice as the expansion of the forum to discuss global economic governance to G20 and IMF reform to provide East Asia more representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his 2009 report on the world financial and economic crisis and its impact on development, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed concerns about a range of direct and indirect impacts on the environment. Those concerns included the impact of a slow-down in investment in environmentally sustainable technologies, as well as the impact of stimulus packages that relied on poorly planned infrastructure and resource development. They included worries about whether higher levels of unemployment would result in greater and unsustainable use of subsistence resources. Against the backdrop of these concerns, this article examines the impact of both the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the current global financial crisis on environmental sustainability in East Asia. It shows that both crises generated similar patterns of environmental impact, but that those impacts were at times counter-intuitive and ambiguous. Positive impacts were short-lived and negative impacts were little affected in the longer term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the use of film as pedagogical material to teach Everyday International Political Economy (EIPE). Film is an effective tool to bridge IPE research and teaching, and to fully integrate the everyday an as object of IPE scholarship and pedagogy. Film allows students to develop an understanding of IPE that considers often forgotten actors of the global economy, and to see how the global economy shapes and is shaped by what takes places in schools, workplaces, and households. The article discusses one practical experience of using film to teach EIPE: a 'Political Economy of East Asia' course developed by the author. It offers a concrete demonstration of how three movies can be integrated into the curriculum to discuss themes such as regional outsourcing, financial crises, East Asian developmentalism, the global division of labour, cultural globalization, and China's economic rise; how active learning through film is encouraged; and how students' work on these movies is assessed. The article concludes by addressing methodological difficulties, students' evaluations of the course, and future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to explore the empirical validity of the real interest rate parity (RIP) hypothesis for East Asian countries using Japan as the base country. To this end, we employ the recently proposed unit root tests of Christopoulos and Leon-Ledesma that account for both multiple smooth structural breaks of unknown form and nonlinear mean reversion in the series. Our empirical results uncover overwhelming evidences in favor of the RIP hypothesis for the whole countries in our sample. More specifically, through a Fourier approximation, it is observed that all real interest rate differentials display a mean-reverting behavior around an infrequently smooth-breaking mean, with the breaks being in accordance with the financial reforms and economic crises witnessed by the countries. Moreover, the degree of mean reversion appears to vary nonlinearly with the size of real interest rate appreciations and depreciations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The performance of commercial banks and government-owned specialized banks in Thailand is estimated after the 1997 East Asian financial crisis. Commercial banks exhibit increasing returns to scale, whereas government-owned specialized banks exhibit decreasing returns to scale, implying further increases in bank size and market concentration in the commercial bank sector but not for government specialized banks. Cost inefficiency varies by bank and is a function of the ratio of nonperforming loans (NPLs) to total loans, equity to total assets and liquid assets to total assets, as well as the number of branches. On average, banks with fewer NPLs, that are well capitalized and with adequate liquidity are efficient. Thus, stricter rules to regulate credit risk management and ensure capital and liquidity adequacy would enhance efficiency in the banking sector. Although estimated input substitutability appears to be low, labour and loanable fund are substitutes. However, labour and physical capital as well as physical and loanable funds are complements in commercial banks. All the three inputs of labour, physical capital and loanable funds are substitutes for the government specialized banks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the standing of Anglo-American capitalism has been badly damaged by the global economic crisis, the return of the state in emerging markets is by no means assured. Over the past decade, financial processes originating in Anglo-American markets, such as derivatives, hedge funds and mergers and acquisitions (M&A), have made quiet headway in emerging markets. One of the transmission channels is financial returnees, defined as elites returning to domestic finance from either global finance abroad or from foreign financial institutions in their home countries. Many financial returnees pursue business agendas that parallel the Anglo-American model, while portraying themselves as local for domestic constituencies. These actions are now especially visible in the rise of private equity funds in emerging markets. This article defines the concept of a financial returnee and charts the impact of these individuals in importing the Anglo-American private equity model to Asia with Korea as the primary case study. Once foreign-controlled, the private equity industry in Korea is now domestically-run and financial returnees have been integral in this sector's short but important history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent debates surrounding state transformation in East Asia have tended to examine either how transformations in domestic social relations undermined the efficacy of the developmental state, or how mobilisation of coercion and consent at the international level led to the adoption of neoliberal policies. Through an examination of the case of Korea, however, this article seeks to move beyond this division between 'domestic' - and 'international' - centred analyses to provide a framework wherby mutually constitutive transformations taking place both at the level of social relations of production and at the level of the international order can be integrated to produce a conjunctural analysis of state transformation. Through deploying Gramsci's concept of passive revolution, an analysis of social and geopolitical underpinnings of korean late development is provided in order to provide an alternative explanation of the causes and nature of transition towards the neoliberal state since the latter part of the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1997-98 East and Southeast Asia experienced a region-wide financial crisis that saw national currencies lose 75 per cent of their value and stock markets wiped out. The financial crisis became an antagonistic and racialised referendum on Asian values between certain Asian governments and their Western critics. What was the larger political significance of this focus on Asian values? Focusing on the Malaysian government's controversial decision to go against the international financial community by implementing capital controls during the crisis, I argue that the debate over Asian values can be understood as performances to challenge and psychologically defend the conventional hierarchy of international relations that followed its symbolic disruption through the economic success of the regional economies before the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the mid-1990s, the East Asian countries experienced severe financial crisis that were followed by deep economic downturns. A variety of methodologies have been used to understand the nature of the Asian financial crisis. However, the impact of the 1997 Asian financial crisis on the efficiency of the financial industry has yet to be critically examined. By employing the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach the present study attempts to examine for the first time the impact of the 1997 Asian financial crisis on the efficiency of the Korean banking sector. The study focuses on three major approaches, namely, intermediation, value added, and operating approaches. The results clearly bring forth the high degree of inefficiency in the Korean banking sector, particularly a year after the Asian financial crisis. We find that the Korean banking sector has consistently exhibit higher technical efficiency levels under value added approach, while technical efficiency seems to be lowest under intermediation approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Competitiveness' has become a transnational policy buzzword in a globalized world and this invites us to examine critically 'competitiveness' discourses and their manifestations in the policy-consultancy circuit. This article adopts a 'cultural political economy' approach to the rise to hegemonic 'knowledge brand' status since the mid-1990s of the influential account of Michael E. Porter and his Harvard Business School associates. This account of competitiveness has since been recontextualized from the national to the urban, regional and global scales. The article interweaves theoretical and empirical arguments in five steps. Firstly, it outlines the bases of cultural political economy as a discursive as well as material account of the remaking and reproduction of social relations. Secondly, it presents three stages in the development of 'competitiveness' discourses from theoretical paradigm to knowledge brand. Thirdly, it explores how this knowledge brand has been recontextualized through knowledge apparatuses, such as indices and metaphors, as well as through related technologies of power at the global level and the regional-national scale of East Asia. Fourthly, and conversely, it shows how this hegemonic logic of competitiveness is being challenged and negotiated in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Fifthly, it offers some concluding comments on knowledge brands and on how cultural political economy can contribute to a critical understanding of policy-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Developmental State (DS) has been central to East Asia's rapid economic development over the last three decades. This analysis reviews the origins of the concept of the DS, the broader theoretical battles that provide the context in which the concept has been used, and the conditions that facilitated the emergence of the DS itself. The way in which the changing events in East Asia have influenced analyses of the DS will also be addressed with special attention paid to the onset of globalization, the end of the Cold War, and the impact of the Asian financial crisis. Finally, an assessment is undertaken of analyses of the DS that have appeared in the pages of The Pacific Review over the last twenty years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the recovery of the Korean economy from the Asian currency crisis in 1998. The role of reforms mandated by the International Monetary Fund is presented critically in comparison with the role of state intervention and export oriented development in Korea's economic recovery. The IMF believed that liberalization and reforms that prioritized building the confidence of foreign investors would lead to economic growth. The viability of Korean style export promotion and state intervention as a model for economic recovery is treated with skepticism. These doubts stem from growing competition among exporting countries and the probable decline of the U.S. as a large scale importer of consumer goods.

The crisis of 1997 involved a serious disruption within the financial systems of the East Asian economies. A substantial literature on the causes and results of the crisis subsequently accumulated, and while there has been a certain convergence of opinion, a number of factors appear to be consistently ignored or given insufficient attention. An attempt is made below to correct this imbalance. Attention is initially focused on some of the key influences affecting financial systems, and particular consideration is given to the influence of space. The nature, form and causes of the crisis are then examined, along with a discussion of the post-crisis recovery and the role of the state in this connection. The commentary concludes with an identification of the more important implications of the crisis and the lessons to be learnt from these. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of economic governance is now thought to require the remaking of respective accountabilities along with significant corresponding accounting change. On the basis of key discourses about a particular 'critical' period in East Asia's recent history, this article considers whether certain regional and individual country accountabilities were actually remade and whether the role of accounting changed accordingly. It finds that the preferred strategies governing economic recovery after the East Asian crisis were partial and incompletely realized. It concludes that 'higher order' governance has been unexpectedly problematic and requires more East Asian sourced research in future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Asian financial crisis increased economic disparities in the East Asian (EA) region, thus making monetary integration more difficult, but rekindled political interest in Asian monetary and exchange rate cooperation. This article applies the theory of Generalized Purchasing Power Parity (G-PPP), which looks at the behaviour of long-run real exchange rates, to assess the potential for an optimum currency area (OCA) among a subset of EA countries based on five of the more advanced members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN5). Our findings suggest little support for an OCA for ASEAN5 as a bloc prior to the Asian financial crisis and mixed results in the post-crisis period. In particular, asymmetries in the way countries adjust to shocks and low or insignificant speeds of adjustment were found. Thus, although the application of single OCA criteria is notoriously demanding and our tests apply to only one of the many criteria for the successful formation of an OCA, we cannot find persuasive evidence that ASEAN5 as a group constitute a potential currency area with either the USA or Japan, even when the 'noisy' period of the Asian financial crisis is omitted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrary to the dominant view that the developmental state evolved to reduce transaction cost (such as moral hazard), it is argued that it represented, first and foremost policy compromise between business and government over redistribution and market competitiveness. This compromise was possible because of favouable political conditions: a long shadow of the future, a favorable payoff structure, and an unequal distribution of power (in favor of the government). The long shadow of the future, in particular, was decisive in allowing the government and business to commit to and enforce their agreement. In some East Asian countries, however, political changes shortened the time horizon of state and business elites, weakening their policy cooperation and increasing the vulnerability of the economy to a crisis. This theory is tested against the cases of nine East Asian countries, using the stability of the party system as a proxy for the length of the time horizon and thus, the ability of actors to make a credible commitment. Consistent with theory, it is found and the more fragmented or divided a country's party system (i.e the shorter the time horizon) had become before the outbreak of the crisis, the more severe and costly the economic crisis has been in that country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article starts from Peter Gowan's notion of a Dollar-Wall Street Regime (DWSR) characterized by financial deregulation, the dollar as the world's currency, large international capital flows, and frequent financial crises. The author argues that the DWSR has relied on a special economic relationship between the United States and East Asia, characterized by large East Asian trade and current account surpluses with the United States and the investment of East Asian dollar holdings in U.S. capital markets. For some time both parties benefited from this relationship, but eventually it gave rise to financial crises in East Asia. Thus, Japan's financial crisis around 1990 and the 1997/98 East Asian financial crisis are both related to economic over-accumulation caused by the buildup of currency reserves through trade with the United States. Attempts at East Asian monetary integration since 1997 are viewed as a potential challenge to the DWSR. These attempts have however been blocked or rendered harmless by regional divisions as well as by U.S. resistance. While an East Asian political challenge to the DWSR is unlikely for the time being, the special U.S.-East Asian economic relationship may become substantially weakened by the growing problems of the U.S. economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Karel van Wolferen argues that, since Japan's political economy was the main factor in creating the circumstances that led up to the East Asian financial crisis, studies must focus on it to understand this event. The Japanese economy, which is here described as a war economy operating in peacetime, provided the model for East Asia's 'tiger economies' that imitated the Japanese government in its targeting of sectors for investment, especially the construction industry in the 1980s. These other East Asian economies proved more vulnerable to crisis than the Japanese economy because they were more open to foreign investment and did not have Japan's closely knit economic and financial networks and institutions. After presenting this preface to the crisis, van Wolferen then criticizes the current East Asian economic situation, in which international institutions continue to force the Western ideals of transparency and deregulation on most of the East Asian economies while permitting Japan to remain the least transparent economy of the entire region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ha and Kim present a new reading of the East Asian crisis, focusing particularly on South Korea's experience. They argue that previous studies have ignored the political environment that paved the way for such an event. Neoliberal economists, according to the authors, were so enamoured with the example of the 'Asian tigers' and the ideal of unregulated markets that they were blind to the many warnings of an ensuing disaster. Economic systems can thus no longer rest on such a free-market capitalist ideal where no one controls the global economy, but must instead have a secure political base. As the financial crisis has shown, such international anarchy must be checked by a new set of international institutions. While the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) organisation did attempt to handle the crisis, it, along with Japan and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), proved unable to do so. East Asia's leaders and theorists have been presented with the challenge of reforming this region's institutions and political orders in order to avoid another crisis, complete with all its social and political ramifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the factors attributed to the East Asian financial crisis in 1997. Evidence suggesting that the crisis was preceded by a sharp export slump in the region as early as 1996; Significance of the appreciation of the American dollar's value against the Japanese yen.

pragmatic and long-term approach to financial market reform, with greater sensitivity to political risks and constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Asian financial crisis has significantly changed the way in which regionalism in East Asia is taking place. Prior to the crisis, regionalism in the area was noted for its relative lack of formal institutions; many analyses stressed the role of private businesses in fostering a 'regional economy'. Post-crisis regionalism is being led by the state and encompasses both monetary and trade dimensions. The reasons for this change are analysed and the regional policies of China and Japan examined. The spur to post-crisis regionalism is argued to have been provided by a desire to limit the influence in the region of the US and the international financial institutions. The Asian financial crisis has significantly changed the way in which regionalism in East Asia is taking place. Prior to the crisis, regionalism in the area was noted for its relative lack of formal institutions; many analyses stressed the role of private businesses in fostering a 'regional economy'. Post-crisis regionalism is being led by the state and encompasses both monetary and trade dimensions. The reasons for this change are analysed and the regional policies of China and Japan examined. The spur to post-crisis regionalism is argued to have been provided by a desire to limit the influence in the region of the US and the international financial institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The historic success o fEast Asian economies prior to the 1997 financial crisis depended on their ability to escape the trap of deteriorating terms through a regional pattern of development known as the flying geese model. However, this pattern of development has come under increasing strain in the second half of 1980s. As competitive pressures intensified, producers throughout the region early-exited their niches of production in a futile attempt to safeguard their competitive position. The investment boom this has caused in the early 1990s led to the creation overcapacity throughout the region and the reemergence of the fallacy of composition inherent in a generalized system of export led growth, paving the way for the financial crisis of 1997. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A benefit of the 1997-98 Asian crisis was said to be the impetus it gave regional governments to institute necessary reforms to avert future crises. With apparent revival from the crisis, such reform impetus has declined and observers now warn that lack of reform threatens sustained recovery based on long-term foreign direct investment, as opposed to short-term foreign bank debt and volatile foreign portfolio investments. However, little systematic empirical evidence has been produced to substantiate such observations. Using data from North American firms (n = 80) operating in the Asia-Pacific, this article shows that (a) multinational firms anticipated Asian crisis-prompted reforms that would improve overall business environments, (b) by 2000, lack of reform was regarded as a major problem facing firms in the region and (c) significant correlations between reforms and anticipated improved business environments exist, implying that FDI flows could suffer if reforms are not carried through. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan stands accused of purveying a defective developmental state model of growth to the East Asian states which was responsible for the onset of the currency crises from 1997 onwards, and then of failing to provide the necessary leadership for the stabilization and recovery of the region. Japan’s position of economic dominance and its nascent political leadership role in East Asia are now seen to be under attack. However, this article argues that over the longer term Japan is continuing to exercise considerable covert economic and political leadership in the region. Examination of Japanese policy makers’ perceptions of the East Asian crisis reveals that they see the region as hit above all by currency crises which have transmuted into economic ones, but that the model of export and DFI-powered growth in the region is still fundamentally sound. Japanese policy makers contend that Japan is not responsible for the occurrence of the crises, nor are the USA- and IMF-prescribed solutions likely to hold the key to the restoration of growth in East Asia. Instead, they quietly lay the blame for the crises upon China for undercutting the competitiveness of East Asian exports and moving ahead of the ASEAN-4 in the regional production cycle. Hence, Japanese policy, as manifested in the New Miyazawa Initiative, has concentrated upon regearing existing developmental models, and has gradually begun to restore a measure of confidence in Japanese economic leadership and to set the agendas of both the USA and multilateral institutions towards the crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article traces the evolution of the East Asian financial crises. One may well be on the verge of a world slump. The Thai crisis of July 1997 soon became the Southeast Asian crisis, then in October turned into the Asian crisis and has now become the Great Asian Depression. The sudden intensification of insecurity and poverty that confronts hundreds of millions of people in Asia makes this one of the worst economic calamities of the twentieth century. Spending on education, health care and social welfare is shrinking rapidly, creating gaping "social deficits." The abrupt shift to negative growth in what had been the world's fastest-growing region has sent a contractionary wave coursing through the world economy, setting of a cycle of events in other places. Commodity prices have fallen to their lowest levels in more than 20 years. From Venezuela to Chile, Canada to New Zealand, Nigeria to South Africa to Russia and places in between, the low prices make it hard to sustain economic growth and public spending. Commodity producers are experiencing downward pressure on their exchange rates against the U.S. Dollar.

The crisis in East Asia has been analyzed strictly in financial terms. In reality, however, it is multifaceted and deeply rooted in the history of social, economic and political developments of the region. In an attempt to show a few of these historical roots, this article will first examine some origins of the decade-long Japanese crisis. Next, it will trace some of the reasons for the export to other Asian countries of the japanese model of development, and eventually its crisis. Finally, the article will also show that the relentless efforts by Washington in pushing "liberalization" on these countries have also precipitated and worsened the current crisis whose social and political consequences would be far more difficult to reverse should there be economic recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argues that the East Asian economic crisis has thrown two versions of mainstream development theory into crisis because it threatens this shared vision. Neoliberalism responses to the crisis as championed by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the United States government; Structural-institutionalist response to the crisis.

Seven months after the outbreak of the Asian financial crisis, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) moved into the eye of the economic typhoon ravaging the region. The Fund's high profile coincides with the spread of the deflationary and inflationary effects of the financial collapse on the real economy of the region, making the period potentially explosive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]