As late as October 1997 the IMF declared that the Korean economy was experiencing a temporary liquidity squeeze, not a solvency problem. Yet in December 1997 Deputy Managing Director Stanley Fischer declared that Korea suffered from a systemic “breakdown of economic relations” so complete...

In December 1997 the IMF offered Korea loans to help alleviate its financial crisis. These loans were accompanied by what the IMF called “extreme structural conditionality.” Korea was required to replace its traditional East Asian economic system with a neoliberal model. We review economic...

This study examines the economic effects of capital account liberalization on economic growth. The format of this study is in three essays. The first essay examines the macroeconomic effects of liberalization on economic growth, using cross-country growth regressions and developing a new measure...

This paper evaluates the neoliberal economic restructuring process implemented in Korea following the 1997 Asian financial crisis. We first argue that the austerity macroeconomic policy of late 1997 and early 1998 was the main cause of the economic collapse in 1998, and that the decision of the...