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.
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.
Corporate credit growth in China has been excessive in recent years. This credit boom is related to the large increase in investment after the Global Financial Crisis. Investment efficiency has fallen and the financial performance of corporates has deteriorated steadily, affecting asset quality in financial institutions. The corporate debt problem should be addressed urgently with a comprehensive strategy. Key elements should include identifying companies in financial difficulties, proactively recognizing losses in the financial system, burden sharing, corporate restructuring and governance reform, hardening budget constraints, and facilitating market entry. A proactive strategy would trade off short-term economic pain for larger longer-term gain.
Sea-Jin Chang argues that the Korean financial crisis of 1997 was due to the inertia of both the business groups known as chaebols and the Korean government which prevented adaptation to changing external environments. Once the Korean government stopped central economic planning and pursued economic liberalization in the 1980s, the transition created a void under which neither the government nor markets could monitor chaebols' investment activities. The intricate web of cross-shareholding, debt guarantees, and vertical integration resulted in extensive cross-subsidization and kept chaebols from shedding unprofitable businesses. The government's continued interventions in banks' lending practices created 'moral hazards' for both chaebols and banks. This treatment demonstrates how the structure of chaebols later inhibited other adaptations and for all practical purposes became nearly dysfunctional. The book argues that restructuring of chaebols should focus on improving corporate governance systems. After such restructuring, the author predicts, chaebols will re-emerge as stronger, more focused global players.
This book chronicles how Korea dealt with and overcame the crisis over time. The book is organized into eleven chapters. Chapter one outlines the troubling financial market conditions at home and abroad before the crisis. Chapter two then delves into the origin of the crisis and offers analyses on the shortcomings of the Korean economy and the instability of the international financial system. In chapter three, policy measures the government executed in the wake of the onset of the crisis are described and analyzed. Chapter four probes the steps taken to reduce the risk of sovereign insolvency in the face of the cool market reaction to the initial package of crisis response measures announced by the International Monetary Fund in December 1997. Chapter five describes the background within which the government established the institutional framework necessary for corporate, financial, and labor market restructuring between December 1997 and April 1998. The government efforts to secure additional foreign currency liquidity through the markets and to devise initiatives to counter the massive unemployment are discussed in detail. In chapter six, the situation during May and June 1998 is explored with a focus on the closure of nonviable corporate and financial companies and the efforts to drive down interest rates and revive credit flows. This is followed, in chapter seven, by an analysis of the first phase of financial sector restructuring, which started in the third quarter of 1998, and the measures adopted to shore up potential growth and cope with the pressing problem of unemployment. Chapters eight and nine deal separately with the restructuring of the top five chaebols (the large family-controlled and family-run groups that dominate business in Korea), the economic stimulus packages applied during the fourth quarter of 1998, the efforts to restore financial market stability and economic growth, and the initial phase of foreign exchange liberalization measures, which were implemented during the first half of 1999. Chapter ten then discusses the situation during the second half of 1999, with a particular focus on the collapse of the Daewoo business group, including the steps taken to contain the resulting fallout, as well as measures aimed at expanding the economic recovery. Chapter eleven, the final chapter, offers a diagnosis of the Korean economy, along with an analysis of the policy implications and the responses for the future.
Explanations of the causes of the Asian crisis have focused on macroeconomic factors leading to the crisis. This paper offers a complementary corporate distress perspective linking the crisis to corporate finances. Key ratios for companies in various countries are presented in the paper. The global benchmarking imposes a consistent cross-border analysis of financial risk and performance, and sheds light on the crisis. The study provides a statistical review of the financial practices and performance of corporates in Asia: Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand benchmarked against financials of corporates in other countries: Latin America, and industrialized countries: France, Germany, Japan and USA. A thematic point that comes across in all the results of the corporate financial analysis is unsustainable rapid (and probably excessive) investment in fixed assets financed by excessive borrowing in some Asian countries- e.g., Indonesia, Korea and Thailand. The East Asian investment-spending spree resulted in poor profitability, reflected in low, and declining return on equity, and return on capital employed. It leads to the conclusion that at the core of the corporate crisis were financial excesses that violated prudent financial practices, and eventually lead to the inevitable financial distress we are witnessing. Therefore, the empirical findings presented in the paper lend credence to the view advanced by Krugman that crony capitalism was at the core of the crisis. Crony capitalism was manifested in supportive bad policies-e.g., implicit government guarantees, and poor banking supervision- that lead to poor credit allocation decisions in the banking dominated financial system. Preliminary findings suggest as well vast differences in Economic Value Added between countries- developing and developed alike. The conclusions from an economic value added approach indicate, that in an era of increasing capital mobility, corporates are not adhering to global standards in creating shareholder value. The analysis leads to policy conclusions.
This paper reviews macroeconomic developments during the first year of the crisis in east Asia and draws some preliminary policy lessons. The crisis is rooted in the interaction of large capital inflows and weak private and public sector governance. At the same time, macroeconomic adjustment in these countries has resulted in some surprising outcomes, including severe economic contractions, low inflation, and rapid external adjustment. The lessons for crisis resolution include the importance of tight monetary policy early on for exchange rate stabilization, flexible fiscal policy, and comprehensive structural reform. Crises are avoided by prudent macroeconomic policies, diligent bank supervision, transparent data dissemination, strong governance, and forward-looking policymaking, even in good times.
The Asian financial crisis of 1997–1998 was supposed to be the death knell for the developmental state. The International Monetary Fund supplied emergency funds for shattered economies but demanded that states liberalize financial markets and withdraw from direct involvement in the economy. Financial liberalization was meant to spell the end of strategic industry policy and the state-directed "policy lending" it involved. Yet, largely unremarked by analysts, South Korea has since seen a striking revival of financial activism. Policy lending by state-owned development banks has returned the state to the core of the financial system. Korean development banks now account for one quarter of all loans and take the lead in providing low-cost finance to local manufacturing firms in strategic industries.Elizabeth Thurbon argues that an ideational analysis can help explain this renewed financial activism. She demonstrates the presence of a "developmental mindset" on the part of political leaders and policy elites in Korea. This mindset involves shared ways of thinking about the purpose of finance and its relationship to the productive economy. The developmental mindset has a long history in Korea but is subject to the vicissitudes of political and economic circumstances. Thurbon traces the structural, institutional, political, and ideational factors that have strengthened and at times weakened the developmental consensus, culminating in the revival of financial activism in Korea. In doing so, Thurbon offers a novel defense of the developmental state idea and a new framework for investigating the emergence and evolution of developmental states. She also canvasses the implications of the Korean experience for wider debates concerning the future of financial activism in an era of financialization, energy insecurity, and climate change.
The countercyclical capital buffer (CCB) was proposed by the Basel committee to increase the resilience of the banking sector to negative shocks. The interactions between banking sector losses and the real economy highlight the importance of building a capital buffer in periods when systemic risks are rising. Basel III introduces a framework for a time-varying capital buffer on top of the minimum capital requirement and another time-invariant buffer (the conservation buffer). The CCB aims to make banks more resilient against imbalances in credit markets and thereby enhance medium-term prospects of the economy—in good times when system-wide risks are growing, the regulators could impose the CCB which would help the banks to withstand losses in bad times.
