Working Paper

Was there a boom in money and credit prior to East Asia's recent currency crisis?

Abstract: This paper assesses the relationship between money and credit and episodes of sharp depreciation in East Asia by (i) examining growth rates of money and credit variables around depreciation episodes; (ii) estimating the impact of money and credit variables on the probability of a share depreciation episode using logit models; (iii) evaluating the signals contained in money and credit variables prior to episodes of sharp currency depreciation. Reserve money grew rapidly prior to the 1997 currency crisis in East Asia. However, signs of a money or credit boom based on other indicators were mixed. The 1997 episodes differ from East Asia's past experience in a number of ways. Rapid growth in the M2 multiplier and in the ratio of M2 to foreign reserves, positive deviations of reserve money from trend, and declines or sluggish growth in reserve money and in foreign reserves, helped predict episodes of sharp depreciation up to mid-1996. While some of these indicators indicated the possibility of a crisis in some of the countries prior to the 1997 episodes, they did not consistently predict the sharp depreciations that occurred.

Keywords: Financial crises - Asia; Asia; East Asia;

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

Part of Series: Pacific Basin Working Paper Series

Publication Date: 1998

Number: 98-05