ABSTRACT
Just as they have differed over explaining the causes of the Asian financial crisis, so scholars have suggested different ways to sub-divide the chronology of the crisis for analytical purposes. Here a division of the Asian financial crisis into six broad phases is proposed. The first phase, from July to October 1997, covers the initial impact in South-East Asia, particularly in Thailand and Indonesia but to a lesser extent in the Philippines and Malaysia. The second phase, from October to December 1997 covers the spill-over of the crisis into North-East Asia, specifically South Korea. The third phase, from January to May 1998, saw both a further geographical widening of the impact of the crisis, with economies such as Singapore and Hong Kong, which had seemed to survive the initial shock comparatively better, falling into negative growth, as well as the transformation, at least in Indonesia, of an economic crisis into a major political one. The fourth phase, from June to the end of 1998, was a period of holding the line, as most of the economies tried to prevent themselves from slipping too far into recession, and of early moves to restructure economic systems – or, in the case of Malaysia, to try to insulate its economy from outside influence – beginning to be implemented. The fifth phase, from early to late 1999, saw the first real shoots of recovery, most notably in South Korea and Singapore, with almost all of the regional economies edging back into positive growth. The sixth phase, from the end of 1999 to the time of writing, has seen restored mediumlevel growth in most of the Asian economies and in some cases even high growth again. This chapter deals with the first two of these phases, as the financial crisis of South-East Asia spread to encompass South Korea too.
