An IMF paper reviewing the policy responses of Indonesia, Korea and Thailand to the 1997 Asian crisis, comparing the actions of these three countries with those of Malaysia and the Philippines. Although all judgements are still tentative, important lessons can be learned from the experiences of the last two years.
Trade in services, far more than trade in goods, is affected by a variety of domestic regulations, ranging from qualification and licensing requirements in professional services to pro-competitive regulation in telecommunications services. Experience shows that the quality of regulation strongly influences the consequences of trade liberalization. WTO members have agreed that a central task in the ongoing services negotiations will be to develop a set of rules to ensure that domestic regulations support rather than impede trade liberalization. Since these rules are bound to have a profound impact on the evolution of policy, particularly in developing countries, it is important that they be conducive to economically rational policy-making. This book addresses two central questions: What impact can international trade rules on services have on the exercise of domestic regulatory sovereignty? And how can services negotiations be harnessed to promote and consolidate domestic policy reform across highly diverse sectors? The book, with contributions from several of the world's leading experts in the field, explores a range of rule-making challenges arising at this policy interface, in areas such as transparency, standards and the adoption of a necessity test for services trade. Contributions also provide an in-depth look at these issues in the key areas of accountancy, energy, finance, health, telecommunications and transportation services.
"Examines Asia's emerging markets, which survived the financial debacle of 2008-09 with only modest declines in growth; discusses activities that could dampen continuing development in these markets including inflation, surging capital inflows, asset and credit bubbles, and rapid currency appreciation; and offers strategies to promote financial stability"--Provided by publisher.
In the summer of 1997, a tidal wave of economic problems swept across Asia. Currencies plummeted, banks failed, GNP stagnated, unemployment soared, and exports stalled. In short, the vaunted "Asian Economic Miracle" became the "Asian Economic Crisis"—with serious repercussions for nations and markets around the world. While the headlines are still fresh, a group of experts on the region presents the first account to focus on the political causes and implications of the crisis. The events of 1997–98 involved not just property values, financial flows, portfolio makeup, and debt ratios, they argue, but also the power relationships that shaped those economic indicators.As they examine the domestic, regional, and international politics that underlay the economic collapse, the authors analyze the reasons why the crisis affected the nations of Asia in radically different ways. The authors also consider whether the crisis indicates a radical change in Asia's economic future.
In a world where capital moves freely across national borders, developing countries have increasingly been subjected to devastating financial crises caused by the sudden withdrawal of foreign capital. How do such crises come about? This book focuses on a novel causal path: that of miscommunication. By examining the determinants of Asia's financial crisis of 1997–8, it demonstrates why developing democracies are exceptionally vulnerable to breakdowns in communication between financial officials and the chief executive and outlines the disastrous consequences of such breakdowns. The book offers a framework for predicting where chief executives are most likely to be ill informed about critical economic variables. It also considers those situations in which politicians are dependent on financial officials whom they cannot completely trust or in which multiple veto players damage the flow of information.
Ten original essays examine the political and institutional factors that influence the initiation and efficiency of preferential credit policies in Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Chile, Mexico, and Brazil.
This book analyzes state-owned enterprises (SOEs), which are still significant players in many Asian economies. They provide essential public services, build and operate key infrastructure, and are often reservoirs of public employment. Their characteristics and inherent competitive advantages as publicly owned enterprises allow them to play these critical roles. Their weaknesses in governance and inefficiencies in incentive structures, however, also often lead to poor performance. SOEs must be efficient, transparent, and accountable to level the playing field for private companies, secure the growth of a vibrant private sector, and achieve sustained and inclusive economic growth. This book analyzes the reform of SOEs in Asia, the results of which are mixed. The volume concludes that some key conditions generally need to be met for SOE reforms to be successful: national bureaucracies must have the capacity to implement the reforms, and adverse impacts on international trade and investment must be avoided.
Seventeen in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 190 economies, Doing Business 2020 measures aspects of regulation affecting 10 areas of everyday business activity.
" A Brookings Institution Press and Asian Development Bank Institute publication The global financial crisis has led to a sweeping reevaluation of financial market regulation and macroeconomic policies. Emerging markets need to balance the goals of financial development and broader financial inclusion with the imperative of strengthening macroeconomic and financial stability. The third in a series on emerging markets, New Paradigms for Financial Regulation develops new analytical frameworks and provides policy prescriptions for how the frameworks should be adapted to a world of more free and more volatile capital. This volume provides an overview of the global regulatory landscape from the perspective of Asian emerging markets. The contributors discuss the many challenges ahead in developing sound and flexible financial regulatory systems for emerging market economies. The challenges are heightened by the rising integration of these economies into global trade and finance, the growing sophistication of their financial systems as globalization and emergence processes accelerate, and their potential vulnerability to instability arising from the financial markets in the advanced economies. The contributors provide guidance about pitfalls to be avoided, general principles that should guide the creation of sound regulatory systems, and valuable analytic perspectives about how to continue to broaden the financial sector and innovate while still maintaining financial and macroeconomic stability. "
This book discusses the relationship between financial liberalization, financial deepening and economic performance from both a theoretical and a policy perspective, comparing several 'big' emerging countries: Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Russia, South Africa and India, amongst others.