ABSTRACT
The so-called ʻAsian crisis ʼ began, virtually unannounced and scarcely recognized, on 2 July 1997. On that day, after a massive build-up of currency speculation against the Thai baht, the Bank of Thailand finally accepted that it had no choice but to allow the baht to float and appeal to the International Monetary fund (IMF) for financial aid. The Thai currency crisis rapidly spread to other SouthEast Asian currencies, and by the end of the year the ʻcontagion ʼreached South Korea as well. In the course of 1998, other currencies within and beyond East Asia, from Hong Kong to Russia to Brazil, would also come under heavy speculative attack. At the same time, what had begun as a national currency crisis rapidly became a major economic crisis and, in the hardest hit countries, a political crisis also. Not surprisingly, these dramatic events gave rise to a major discontinuity in both economic development policy and in economic development itself.
