Asia Pacific Financial Deregulation

Recent events in East Asia have highlighted the risks of volatility and contagion in a financially integrated world. Countries in the region had been at the forefront of the movement towards increased integration but the crisis that struck Thailand in July 1997, and the rapidity with which it spread to other East Asian nations, suggested that all was not well. Weaknesses in domestic financial intermediation, poor corporate governance and deficient government responses to large capital inflows all played a role in the build-up of vulnerability. Asia-Pacific Financial Deregulation provides an insight into financial liberalisation and structural reform in the region generally and as illustrated by a number of countries.

The increased mobility and volume of international capital flows is a striking trend in international finance. While countries worldwide have engaged in financial deregulation, nowhere is this pattern more pronounced than in East Asia, where it has affected in unanticipated ways the behavior of exchange rates, interest rates, and capital flows. In these thirteen essays, American and Asian scholars analyze the effects of financial deregulation and integration on East Asian markets. Topics covered include the roles of the United States and Japan in trading with Asian countries, macroeconomic policy implications of export-led growth in Korea and Taiwan, the effects of foreign direct investment in China, and the impact of financial liberalization in Japan, Korea, and Singapore. Demonstrating the complexity of financial deregulation and the challenges it poses for policy makers, this volume provides an excellent picture of the overall status of East Asian financial markets for scholars in international finance and Asian economic development.

Recently, real and artificial barriers to international transactions have fallen sharply, causing a rise in the overall volume of international trade. East Asia has been particularly affected by the economic stresses and gains derived from deregulation. Deregulation and Interdependence in the Asia-Pacific Region explores the broadly similar experiences of certain economies in the region—China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea—in dealing with the potentially volatile process of deregulation, and examines the East Asian response to a rapidly transforming economic environment.

Contents include an overview and policy recommendations; case studies which include Australian content; international perspectives; and issues and findings.

. . . an extremely interesting collection, full of insights and institutional detail. . . The book definitely deserves the attention of those interested in one of the most debated issues of the last 20 years in economics and political science. Herb Thompson, Journal of Contemporary Asia Deregulation and its Discontents examines the different ways in which the issues related to deregulation and reregulation have been addressed in Asia. The role of government in business has gone through distinct, if overlapping, cycles: regulation, deregulation and reregulation. However, little is known about deregulation and even less about reregulation, particularly in relation to Asia. The contributors to this book examine the links between the cycles through detvailed analyses of the electricity market, pensions and stock markets in the Asia Pacific. They also offer an explanation of regulatory cycles. This unique and inter-disciplinary book is thoroughly accessible and will be suitable for specialist as well as non-specialist readers. It will appeal to academics and researchers of public sector economics, Asian studies and the political economy of Asia in particular as well as public officials dealing with regulatory issues.

'. . . this is an interesting and valuable collection of papers that addresses a highly topical area of research. The quality of writing is high in the main and the econometric methodology and models transparent. The appendices to many of the empirical chapters provide detailed information about data sources as well as model results. The book should be required reading for researchers and graduate students in this field, and the review papers provide valuable teaching material. It will be especially useful for those concerned with the contribution of governance structures to economic performance, financial crises and the still-disputed relationship between growth and financial liberalization.' - Jenifer Piesse, Asia Pacific Business Review Finance, Governance and Economic Performance in Pacific and South East Asia focuses on key aspects of government policy, financial systems and their links to the economic miracle in Pacific and South East Asia. It also considers the financial crises that have affected those economies and their economic progress. The contributors examine the success of governance in the form of government involvement with the macroeconomy, and with the deregulation of markets in general. Attention is drawn not only to the need for further liberalisation, but also the need to introduce regulatory structures to produce orderly markets.

Contains revised and edited material from the overall synthesis report and the three regional reports in volume 1. Comprises edited versions of the country reports in volume 2.