Crises in Asia or crisis of globalisation?

Abstract

The crises in Southeast and East Asia have started a new round of debate on the benefits and disadvantages of globalisation. We have to ask whether the crises in Asia were the result of failures in national economic policy or whether they were the consequence of ill-constructed global financial markets. It can be concluded that the crises were caused by a number of factors, both internal and external, but that the decisive shifts came from actors on international financial markets as well as from the IMF, whose activities fuelled the crises. To avoid a repetition, a number of options are discussed, including the introduction of a currency regime between the major players in the world economy as well as unilateral measures to defend developing countries’ economies against volatile international financial markets