Premium Essay

Asian Crisis 1997

In:

Submitted By ayab06
Words 4114
Pages 17
| Asian Crisis of 1997 | | | Prepared by:Azra Becirovic and Sanela Bilalic | |

April 21, 2012 |

Long before Asian financial crisis has started, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia had an increasing economic performance; economy was fast growing, saving rates were high, and inflation low. Turning point in Asian economy was 2 July 1997, the day when Thai Baht fell around 20 % against the $US. “It all began in Thailand’ summarizes the conventional explanation of the early stages of the crisis.” (Hill, p.3) How it all began, what factors caused the crisis, what segments were affected the most, what was the backup plan, and what policies should have been taken to prevent the crisis are the points that this paper will cover.
First and Second-Generation Models
According to 1996 annual report of Bank for International Settlements (BIS), pre-crisis fundamentals exhibit economic performance of Asian countries. They’ve experienced moderate inflation rates of about 6%, high savings rate of 32%, and trade openness indicators of 39%. Table 1: East Asian Economic Conditions Before Crisis

Although accounting and macroeconomic analytics have failed to foreseen the currency crisis, which is inevitable, first and second-generation models explain us was it due to weakening macroeconomic fundamentals or financial contagion.
In accordance to first-generation model developed by Krugman 1979, market-speculative movements, in response to policies, are incompatible with fixed exchange rate regime. What it means is that “speculators who want to make a profit can buy foreign exchange reserves causing its exhaustions and forcing the country to devalue or abandon the exchange rate peg.” As many studies have argued, the Asian crisis represents the consequence of its own acts in corporate as well as financial sector. “The weak-post crisis performance has

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Impact of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 and Effect to Latin America

...Impact of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 and effect to Latin America Name: Institution: Date: Abstract In 1997, the Asian Financial Crisis spread rapidly all over the Asia and affected almost all the economies in the world. Prior to the Asian Financial Crisis, the Asian countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Singapore experienced a remarkable growth in the economy that was considered the highest in the world. These Asian economies increased by a notable proportion of 6 to 10 percent annually in the GDP. However, what had been regarded as an Asian miracle seemed to crumple down rapidly 1997 when these Asian countries were faced with a severe financial crisis in their local stock and currency markets. When the economies started recovering from the crisis in 1998, the stock markets in several countries had considerably lost more than 70 percent of their worth, while their currencies depreciated in comparison to the US dollar (Pettis, 2001). The Asian Financial Crisis also affected several nations in the Latin America as they experienced a relentless economic meltdown that had detrimental effects to the economies. For instance, the financial crisis force multinational firms to close down due to liquidation, the banking system deteriorated and this forced high levels of lay-offs leading to unemployment. In addition, the financial crisis resulted in the loss of the people’s purchasing power in the Latin American while nations turned to...

Words: 1875 - Pages: 8

Free Essay

Crisis

...INDONESIA: The Causes, Effects and Lessons of the 1997 East Asian Financial Crisis by Zara Ahmed Julia Dreier Frank Ro April 9, 2007 FSPP 556: Macroeconomics Professor Kathryn Dominguez [pic] Introduction Following its independence in 1945, the Indonesia economy deteriorated drastically as a result of political instability, a young inexperienced government, and ill-disciplined economic nationalism. However, the New Order administration in the 1960s, brought about a new degree of discipline to economic policy that quickly brought inflation down, managed foreign debt, but more importantly, attracted foreign investment through financial liberalization. As massive inflows of foreign investment poured into the country, problems soon arose with regulation and oversight. These structural weaknesses created instability and ultimately multiplied the effects of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. With strong encouragement of the IMF, Indonesia adopted a set of policies to protect currency values and penalize insolvent companies, in order to restore investor and creditor confidence in the country. Despite assistance from the International Monetary Fund, the Crisis devastated the Indonesian economy and brought on massive social unrest. This paper consists of six parts. We intend to analyze pre, during, and post-crisis trends utilizing such macroeconomic models as the Mundell-Fleming model, the IS-LM model, and the open economy model for calculating...

Words: 4046 - Pages: 17

Free Essay

Finance 190 Acc Paper

...Dzhalil Atakeev Finance 190 Professor Shlyakhov 10/21/2013 Asian Currency Crisis The Asian Currency Crisis started in Thailand. The crisis just reflected structural and policy misinterpretation of the Asian region. Fundamental imbalances triggered the currency and financial crisis in 1997, due to crisis markets overreaction and herding caused the plunge of exchange rates, asset prices and economic conditions. Everything started from Thailand, before 1997 the economy grew was very high in Thailand, it was averaging 9% per year. The rate between USD and Baht was $25 per 1 baht. The 1997 was crucial for Thailand because massive speculators attacked Thai baht. The spark on Asian crisis was when prime minister of Thailand announced that he would not devalue the baht, and government just couldn’t defend baht, which was fixed to several currencies, one of the dominant components was USD. The decrease in economy of Thailand cause massive layoffs in finance, real estate, and construction that resulted many people to return their villages and countries. The Thailand baht was devaluating and by 1998 it reached lowest value of 58 baht over 1 USD. Without any support from foreign reserves Thai government had to float the baht, so that way baht was set on currency market. Since baht was pegged to other currencies crisis spread to another Asian countries. By 2001, Thailand's economy had recovered. The increasing tax revenues allowed the country to balance its budget and repay its debts...

Words: 1178 - Pages: 5

Free Essay

Business in Asia

...Introduction In this essay, we will discuss about Asian financial crisis. This crisis happened in 1997. Thailand, South Korea, and Indonesia are the worst countries that affected. There are two views that created the crisis, one is fundamental view and the other one is panic view. Hot money is money that flows between financial markets to get the highest short-term interest rates possible. Capital inflow is increase in the amount of money available from foreign sources for the purchase of local capital assets such as buildings, lands, and machinery. IMF intervention until now still become controversial, two of well-known economist which are Stiglitz and Sachs said that because of IMF intervention the crisis has become much worse rather than before. Moreover, we will discuss about global crisis, this crisis happened in 2007. This started in US because of housing mortgage, and also credit crunch. The difference between Asia crisis and the Global crisis also will be discussed. Asian Crisis Hot money is “Money that flows regularly between financial markets as investors attempt to ensure they get the highest short-term interest rates possible. Hot money will flow from low interest rate yielding countries into higher interest rates countries by investors looking to make the highest return” (Investopedia, 2011). Capital Inflow is “increase in the amount of money available from foreign sources for the purchase of local capital assets such as buildings, lands, and machinery”...

Words: 2871 - Pages: 12

Premium Essay

Asian Crisis

... 1 Asian Contagion 1 Emerging Market Crises 3 Meltdown in Thailand 7 The International Monetary Fund 9 Implication for Business 11 Malaysia 13 Preventing and Managing Future Crises 14 Conclusion 16 References 18 Introduction Asian Contagion In March 1997 Asia faced a serious crisis in financial sector. This concern was started from Thailand and has spread to a lot of countries in Asia. Obviously it affected to those countries in economy situation such as currency value. Also called the "Asian Contagion", this was a series of currency devaluations and other events that spread through many Asian markets beginning in the summer of 1997. The currency markets first failed in Thailand as the result...

Words: 6492 - Pages: 26

Free Essay

The East-Asian Crisis

...THE EAST ASIAN CRISIS Introduction: The East Asian crisis was a period of financial crisis that gripped much of Asia which beginning in July 1997 and raised fears of worldwide economic meltdown due to financial contagion.1 Several countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the republic of Korea and the Philippines were hit directly while others such as Taiwan province of China, Singapore and especially Hong Kong, China were badly affected. What began as a speculative attack on the Thai baht in July 1997 quickly spread as ‘contagion’ to the other countries. Over a three-month period between July and October 1997, the baht fell nearly 40 per cent, the Malaysian ringgit and Philippine peso by about 27 per cent, the Indonesian rupiah by about 40 per cent and the Korean won approximately 35 per cent against the United States dollar. For countries that had been dubbed “miracle economies” this was a serious blow with wide-ranging economic, social and political ramifications.2 In this paper we would try to undertake an empirical analysis of the factors leading to the crisis by analysing on two major points: 1) How have these countries performed in the years leading to the crisis? 2) What was the policy response to the currency crisis and what similarities/differences were there in policy responses across countries? We try to do this by analysing the macroeconomic data of three countries, Malaysia, Thailand and the Republic of Korea, over a 13-year period, from 1990 to 2002. The...

Words: 2206 - Pages: 9

Premium Essay

How to Avoid Middle Income Traps

...sobering.1 These countries recorded real per-capita growth rates of 4.4, 5.7 and 7.5 percent, respectively, during the same period. As shown in Figure 1, Malaysia was at a similar level of development as Korea and Taiwan, China in 1980, and yet while these countries have made the transition from middle-income to high-income status during the subsequent decades, Malaysia has found such an evolution more difficult. In addition, Malaysia’s absolute productivity gap with high-income (OECD) countries has also widened; in the case of the industry sector, the productivity differential nearly doubled from $21,786 in 1980-1985 to $38,946 in 2000-2004 (Felipe et al, 2007). After markedly reduced rates of productivity and growth after the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, there is a growing concern that emerging markets like Malaysia might fall into a “middle income trap”, unable to subsequently achieve high levels of economic growth and further economic transformation.2 The form and pace of structural and spatial transformation is a crucial driver shaping whether countries come out of the middle income trap. The objective of this paper is to examine prior patterns of growth in Malaysia, document the cross-country evidence of how...

Words: 540 - Pages: 3

Free Essay

Financial Crisis

...Jikunan and Lo May Chiun (2012) Economics Crisis and Response: Case Study of Malaysia’s Responses to Asian Financial Crisis Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia Vol. 11, No. 1: 43-56 Journal abbreviation: J. Contemp. East. Asia Stable URL: http://eastasia.yu.ac.kr/documents/Fumitaka_11_1.pdf www.JCEA-Online.net Open Access Publication Creative Commons License Deed Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia, Volume 11, No.1: 43-56 http://dx.doi.org/10.17477/jcea.2012.11.1.043 Economics Crisis and Response: Case Study of Malaysia’s Responses to Asian Financial Crisis Fumitaka Furuoka, Beatrice Lim, Catherine Jikunan and Lo May Chiun The paper chooses the “Asian Financial Crisis” as a case study to examine its impact on Malaysian economy and describes how Malaysian government responded to the crisis. It also focuses on the Asian financial crisis’ impact on the employment of banking sector in Malaysia. In the finance, insurance, real estate and business service sector, a number of 6,596 workers were retrenched. Banks were forced into mergers and acquisition as well as downsizing, trim lean, organizational changes and introduction of new technologies. Excess workers were offered a “voluntary separation scheme.” These retrenched workers became the urban poor facing high cost of living and no opportunity for jobs as there is no safety net provided. 1. Introduction The economic meltdown began in Thailand in July 1997 and spread to other countries in the...

Words: 7422 - Pages: 30

Free Essay

Asian Financial Crisis

...RESEARCH PAPER 99/14 11 FEBRUARY 1999 The Asian Economic Crisis This paper considers the economic crisis that began in the financial markets of South East Asia in 1997 and the consequences for the economies of the region and the rest of the world. The paper provides a chronology of and explores the factors that led to the crisis. An overview is given of the policy measures that the international financial institutions (IFIs), such as the IMF, have taken to deal with the crisis. Some of the arguments and policy proposals made to try to avoid future crises are also covered. Eshan Karunatilleka ECONOMIC POLICY AND STATISTICS SECTION HOUSE OF COMMONS LIBRARY Recent Library Research Papers include: 98/119 98/120 99/1 Unemployment by Constituency - November 1998 Defence Statistics 1998 The Local Government Bill: Best Value and Council Tax Capping Bill No 5 of 1998-99 16.12.98 22.12.98 08.01.99 99/2 99/3 99/4 Unemployment by Constituency - December 1998 Tax Credits Bill Bill 9 of 1998-9 The Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill: 'Age of consent' and abuse of a position of trust [Bill 10 of 1998-99] 13.01.99 18.01.99 21.01.99 99/5 99/6 99/7 The House of Lords Bill: 'Stage One' Issues Bill 34 of 1998-99 The House of Lords Bill: Options for 'Stage Two' Bill 34 of 1998-99 The House of Lords Bill: Lords reform and wider constitutional reform Bill 34 of 1998-99 28.01.99 28.01.99 28.01.99 99/8 99/9 99/10 99/11 99/12 Economic Indicators Local Government...

Words: 16600 - Pages: 67

Premium Essay

Asian Economic Crisis

...The Asian Economic Crisis The Asian Economic Crisis of 1997 was a regional debacle that stirred and involved practically the rest of the world. It was a unique economical situation that no one expected or suggested. The southeastern Asian countries, such as Thailand, South Korea and Indonesia were financially sound and satisfied all the criteria that economists proclaimed necessary to maintain order and progress. However, economists and the rest of the world did not see the breaches in the economy and realize the affect those considerations would have in the exacerbation of an entire region. The purpose of this essay is to explain what the Asian Economic Crisis was, the causes, consequences, and how the world went about resolving the issue to bring this region to where it is today. The 1990s was a decade of enormous growth in Southeast Asia sustained by its exporting (Noble, 1). It was commonly known as the Asian economic miracle. Macroeconomic balances were relatively steady and inflation was under control in these Asian countries, like Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore. Because of the major progress and developments in these countries, it became an attractive location for foreign investment. Technology had reached a new brink, where people could invest internationally without having to leave the country and establish a huge investment abroad. Trading through the internet was easy, efficient and convenient. Capital Inflow into these countries was inundating the...

Words: 3821 - Pages: 16

Free Essay

International Management

...International School of Manageme f ent Doctor of Philosophy ( P (Ph.D.) Presented to: Professor Peter Horn t P 26 July 201119 July 2011 1 Word Coun 3,706 nt: WHIRLPOOL’s GLOBAL STRATEGY CASE ANALYSIS 2 Abstract The paper analyses Whirlpool Corporation’s Global Strategy case study conducted in the year 2001. The paper aims to spot key reasons behind the declining performance the company experienced in the late 1990s a few years after the start of its globalization plan in the year 1987. The plan initiated under the new leadership of David Whitwam encountered many problems in its early stages illustrated in a declining profitability in its home market, losses in the European market and failure in some of its joint ventures in the Asian market.1 With such poor performance and failure in achieving competitive edges in global markets, Whirlpool was at a great risk of losing huge investments made in foreign markets, and losing highly-potential market shares in emerging international markets to aggressive competitors. The paper illustrates core strategic mistakes around three main strategies; sourcing and operations, entry, and marketing strategies adopted. The goal is to address lessons learned from Whirlpool’s experience in globalization in order to shed light for future strategies or building globalization plans for small and medium enterprises aiming to have global footsteps. Keywords: Household Appliances, Globalization, Internationalization, International Management, Case...

Words: 6106 - Pages: 25

Premium Essay

Role of Imf

...of the International Monetary Funds (IMF) in the East Asian Debt Crisis of 1997 By Yaro Sadek Tahirou Minnesota State University, Mankato 2 ABSTRACT During the East Asian Financial crisis in particular, the IMF has been criticized of promoting international cooperation because of the supervised enforcement of its rules. The purpose of this research is to find out how the IMF responded to the East Asian debt crisis and whether or not its responses were the best possible responses to this crisis. Through my research, I talked about the causes of the East Asian financial crisis, the role of the IMF in the international monetary system, and if the IMF responses to Thailand, South Korea and Indonesia were the best responses or not. After analyzing the IMF responses in this crisis, I found that the IMF policies need to be reformed in order to monitor and prevent future financial crises spill-over effects at the global and regional levels. I will analyzed 5 scholarly journals on the financial crisis in East Asia, 3 scholarly articles on the role of IMF in the East Asia financial crisis, and 1 novel called POLITICS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA DEMOCRACY OR LESS by William Case. INTRODUCTION Several financial crises have occurred in the world economy through the last decades. Some examples include the East Asian financial Crisis of 1997, the Latin American debt crisis of 1994-95, the Russian crisis of 1998, and the Brazilian crisis of 1998-99 which spread out to other areas also known...

Words: 7746 - Pages: 31

Premium Essay

Imf’s Role on Asian Crisis

...Trisha LaFleur Econ 375 McNeil 17 November 2014 IMF’s Role on Asian Crisis In July of 1997 Thailand devalued the Baht and thus began the ‘Asian Crisis’ that would soon affect other Southeast Asian countries including the other two that were hit the hardest Indonesia and South Korea. Each country had no choice but to seek help from The International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF would have to pull through in aiding these countries out of this crisis, after carefully reviewing each country and see to what extent their financial problems had developed. As you can see below on Graph 1 each country’s exchange rate had depreciated tremendously during the crisis. With the demise of each Country’s currency their public debt, as shown on Chart 2 below, had grown tremendously. Thailand, Indonesia, and South Korea each developed specific financial restructuring measures that were agreed upon with the IMF. Graph 1: Chart 2: It all started on May 14th 1997 when Thailand started pouring foreign currency into the market in order to ‘to defend the Thai baht against speculative attacks,’ according to the “TimeLine of the Crisis” written by PBS. Two months later the Baht had reached an all-time low of 20% devaluation. Indonesia started to widen its ‘trading band for the rupiah in a move to discourage speculators’ only seven days after Indonesia’s reach for assistance (PBS). No more than two weeks pass until the Singapore dollar starts to devalue. Shortly after that, the...

Words: 1734 - Pages: 7

Free Essay

Trigger, Aggravator, or Rescuer? Criticisms on the Controversial Roles of Imf in East Asia Financial Crisis

...Criticisms on the controversial roles of IMF in East Asia Financial Crisis Introduction Now and then, nation to nation, financial crises are inevitable: Mexico in 1994, the whole East Asia region in 1997, Brazil in 1999, and the most recently Argentina in 2001. Looking back to the victims of such financial crises, we found that most of them are labeled as the developing countries, whose financial sectors were still weak at that time yet were impetuously exposed to the advocated ‘Liberal financial market’ which was supported by the Neoclassical Liberalism social economists. Among all these financial crises, the financial storm in East Asia, starting from the year of 1997, wreaked beyond doubt the greatest havoc on the Asia and the world economy as a whole, dragging down the ‘Asian tigers’ (Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippine, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore) from the peak of the glorious ‘Economic Miracle’ in the past few years. Because of the severity and contagion of the East Asia Crisis, important questions have been raised such as the causes of the crisis, the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the financial architecture of international capital markets. As one of the most important international organizations, IMF has its great impact on the world economy. In this paper, the influence of IMF before the eruption of the crisis and its role in the recovery of East Asia economy will be presented...

Words: 2781 - Pages: 12

Free Essay

Indonesian Decentralization

...Summary This paper analyses the factors which led to the economic crisis which faced Indonesia in 1997, which in turn led to Indonesia making major reforms in government as well as in every other sector. It also looks at the major factors that also have to be improved even though major reforms have swept the nation. The policy of decentralisation, although done for the better, has its drawbacks which can hurt Indonesia in the long run. Contents - Executive Summary 2 -Acknowledgements 3 -Introduction To The Topic 3 -Background Literature Survey 4 -Observations 8 -Conclusions and Recommendations For Future Studies 9 -Appendix/Bibliography/References 10 Acknowledgements I would like to thank Prof. Perrie, for initiating this project and letting us choose suitable topics to analyse. Introduction to topic Indonesia is a country with around 240 million people. From being one of the worst hit countries of the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998 it has become one of the largest countries in the South East Asia in terms of Economy. With a population so big and also a diverse ethnic culture to keep in mind the reforms which were propagated after the financial crisis has been largely the decentralisation of the Government. Background...

Words: 2448 - Pages: 10