The causes for the instability that has marked the financial system over the past decade lie deep in the economic theory that urges easy and efficient substitution of one piece of paper for another, in the technology-driven tight articulation of receipts and payments, and in the growth of...

Asia presents a cumulation of apparently rational decisions that produced disastrous results - a textbook illustration of "financial instability" developing from the economics of euphoria. A combination of factors produced the crisis as enormous capital inflows were drawn to the "Asian...