How are we to understand the East Asian crisis? There are two popular explanations: first that it was just like a nineteenth century British bank panic, calling for prompt action by a 'lender of last resort', namely the IMF; second that it was much worse —nothing less than the bursting of a...

The East Asian financial crisis has shown how governments in affected countries have had to contend both with the external constraint imposed by global capital mobility and domestic political dynamics when instituting adjustment to the crisis. Some commentators see the reform process in the East...