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.
After years of strong performance, Korea’s economy entered a crisis in 1997, owing largely to structural problems in its financial and corporate sectors. These problems emerged in the second half of that year, when the capital inflows that had helped finance Korea’s growth were reversed, as foreign investors—reeling from losses in other Southeast Asian economies—decided to reduce their exposure to Korea. This paper focuses on the sources of the crisis that originated in the financial sector, the measures taken to deal with it, and the evolution of key banking and financial variables in its aftermath.
This paper examines how exchange rate volatility and Korean banks’ foreign exchange liquidity mismatches interacted with each other during the Global Financial Crisis, and whether the vulnerability stemming from this interaction has been reduced since then. Structural and cyclical changes after the crisis, including decreasing demand for currency hedges and the diversifying investor base for bonds, point to a possible weakening of the interaction mechanism; and we find evidences are strongly supportive of this.
A Brookings Institution Press, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund publication The extensive reforms and liberalization of financial services in emerging markets worldwide call for cutting-edge strategies to capture the benefits of new investment opportunities. In Open Doors, a volume of papers from the third annual Financial Markets and Development conference, multidisciplinary financial sector experts analyze current economic and political trends and prescribe practical advice to the financial development community. The book addresses the key issues of concern regarding the emerging markets, including the trends, motivations, and scope of FDI in finance; policy options that will best capture the opportunities of foreign entry; and the role of foreign institutions in e-finance innovation. The authors focus on specific topics such as foreign participation in emerging market banking systems and securities industries, WTO policies and enforcement, the role of foreign banks, liberalization of insurance markets, the need for capital markets, and the policy, regulatory, and legal issues associated with e-finance. For policymakers and financial practitioners affected by the WTO's Financial Services Agreement, this timely book should be of particular interest. Contributors include Donald Mathieson (International Money Fund), Pierre Sauvé (Trade Directorate, OECD), George J. Vojta (formerly with Bankers Trust and Citibank), Harold D. Skipper (J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University), Benn Steil (Council on Foreign Relations), Morris Goldstein and Edward M. Graham (Institute for International Economics), Nicolas Lardy (Brookings Institution), Phillip Turner (Bank of International Settlements), and Robert Ledig (Fried, Frank, Shriver & Jacobson).
Presenting a fascinating and comprehensive analysis of economic development outside of the traditional neo-classical, developmental-state and dependency perspectives, this book examines in detail the evolution of institutions that contributed to economic growth and the formation and the workings of the economic system. It offers one of the most stimulating and distinctive views of Korean economic development to date.
Korea was hit hard by the 2008 global financial crisis, with the foreign bank deleveraging channel coming prominently into play. The global financial crisis demonstrated that a sharp deleveraging can be transmitted to emerging markets through the bank lending channel to a slowdown in credit growth. The analysis finds that a sharp decline in external funding led to relatively modest decline in domestic credit by Korean banks, due to concerted policy efforts by the government in 2008. Impulse responses from a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model calibrated to Korea shows that it appears better prepared to handle such shocks relative to 2008. Indeed, Korea is much more resilient to such shocks due to the efforts by the authorities, which has led to the strengthening of external buffers, such as higher foreign exchange reserves and bilateral and multilateral currency swap arrangements.
For many years up until 1997, Korea was widely seen in economic and financial circles as something of a miracle. The financial crisis that Korea experienced then did much to set its economy back, but by 2001 it was still the 13th largest economy in terms of GDP in the world. This enticing collection, with contributions from experts with an impressive knowledge of Korea and its economy, charts not only the well documented causes of the crisis, but more importantly, its response and recovery from it. With an admirable scholarly rigour, the book covers such topics as: *the origin and evolution of the Korean economic system and its special factors including chaebols *Korean industries since the crisis *What happened to the money after the capital flight of the crisis and did the USA benefit? "The Korean Economy at the" "Crossroads" is intended and recommended not only for students and academics involved in international finance, economics and Asian studies, but also for the business leaders and policy makers who can draw lessons from the books important analyses.
The increased mobility and volume of international capital flows is a striking trend in international finance. While countries worldwide have engaged in financial deregulation, nowhere is this pattern more pronounced than in East Asia, where it has affected in unanticipated ways the behavior of exchange rates, interest rates, and capital flows. In these thirteen essays, American and Asian scholars analyze the effects of financial deregulation and integration on East Asian markets. Topics covered include the roles of the United States and Japan in trading with Asian countries, macroeconomic policy implications of export-led growth in Korea and Taiwan, the effects of foreign direct investment in China, and the impact of financial liberalization in Japan, Korea, and Singapore. Demonstrating the complexity of financial deregulation and the challenges it poses for policy makers, this volume provides an excellent picture of the overall status of East Asian financial markets for scholars in international finance and Asian economic development.
This book represents the first systematic attempt to explore the financial crisis in an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective and is essential reading for both policy-makers and academics interested in national governance.