Limited empirical work has been done to the diverging current account balances of the individual emerging Asian economies. Based on the intertemporal approach to current account, this paper empirically examines both the long-run and short-run impacts of initial stock of net foreign assets,...

The Impossible Trinity doctrine still holds a powerful sway over policymakers, advisors (particularly the International Monetary Fund [IMF]) and academia. In East Asia over the past decade, however, most countries have been able to maintain open capital markets, monetary policy independence, and...

The "decoupling" of East Asia from its economic interactions - both in trade and finance - with the rest of the world refers to the phenomenon of a weakening of the impact of demand and supply shocks emanating from the advanced countries on the region's economic performance since the early...

Since the 1980s, emerging countries have been urged to welcome foreign capital inflows. The result has often been a pattern of surges, where excessive inflows were followed by damaging "sudden stops" and reversals. This was dramatically evident in the Asian crisis of 1997 - 1998. Since that...