ABSTRACT
In 1997, following decades of economic growth, crisis struck the economies of Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Malaysia. Up to this point, these economies had been lauded by the IMF as part of an “East Asian miracle” of economic development. By 1998, the effects of the East Asian financial crisis were felt as far away as Russia, Brazil, and even the United States. In 2001, Argentina, a country considered to be a “model student” of the IMF throughout the 1990s, entered into a severe financial crisis. The IMF was implicated by many as playing a role in exacerbating these crises, and – for the first time in the history of the institution – calls for its reform and even its dissolution came from across the political spectrum.1
