ABSTRACT
Just as in the developed countries, rising and persistent budget deficits have become a major cause for concern in the developing countries also. But in spite of the urgency and the importance which is being attached to this issue, it is surprising that, except for a very few attempts at the quantification of the possible economic effects of these deficits, there has been no systematic study of this area for many of the developing countries. This is particularly the case for the Asian countries. The aim of this study is to fill this gap to some extent. More specifically, this is a comparative study of the Asian countries, namely, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Thailand. Due to lack of data, the coverage of Taiwan is not as comprehensive as that of the other nine countries. The experience of all these countries, in terms of economic growth, inflation, budget deficits, and the growth of public debt has been sufficiently diverse to merit such a comparative study. In addition, this approach should allow us to shed some light on the issue of relevance of the experience of newly industrialized countries for others in our sample.
