Financial Liberalization and the Asian Crisis

The financial crisis that hit a number of economies of Asia in 1997 shocked the world. Financial Liberalization and the Asian Crisis rejects conventional explanations of the crisis as the outcome primarily of inefficient and corrupt economic systems in the countries concerned. It argues that the crisis was the result of premature and overly rapid financial liberalization in a world of increasing liquidity and volatility, and calls for a more cautious approach to financial liberalization, and reform of the international financial architecture.

Ha-Joon Chang is Assistant Director of Development Studies, Faculty of Economics and Politics, Gabriel Palma is Lecturer in Economics, Faculty of Economics and Politics, and D. Hugh Whittaker is Reader in Japanese and Comparative Economic Sociology and Assistant Director of ESRC Center for Business Research, all at the University of Cambridge.