Two Crises, Different Outcomes

Two Crises, Different Outcomes examines East Asian policy reactions to the two major crises of the last fifteen years: the global financial crisis of 2008–9 and the Asian financial crisis of 1997–98. The calamity of the late 1990s saw a massive meltdown concentrated in East Asia. In stark contrast, East Asia avoided the worst effects of the Lehman Brothers collapse, incurring relatively little damage when compared to the financial devastation unleashed on North America and Europe. Much had changed across the intervening decade, not least that China rather than Japan had become the locomotive of regional growth, and that the East Asian economies had taken numerous steps to buffer their financial structures and regulatory regimes. This time, Asia avoided disaster; it bounced back quickly after the initial hit and has been growing in a resilient fashion ever since.The authors of this book explain how the earlier financial crisis affected Asian economies, why government reactions differed so widely during that crisis, and how Asian economies weathered the Great Recession. Drawing on a mixture of single-country expertise and comparative analysis, they conclude by assessing the long-term prospects that Asian countries will continue their recent success.Contributors: Muhamad Chatib Basri, Minister of Finance of the Republic of Indonesia and Professor of Economics at the University of Indonesia; Yun-han Chu, Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica; Richard Doner, Emory University; Barry Naughton, University of California, San Diego; Yasunobu Okabe, Japan International Cooperation Agency Research Institute; T. J. Pempel, University of California, Berkeley; Thomas Pepinsky, Cornell University; Keiichi Tsunekawa, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Tokyo

T. J. Pempel and Keiichi Tsunekawa have edited a volume that succeeds in providing a comprehensive overview of the extent to which domestic politics across several East Asian countries determined their responses—and fate—during each of the crises.... Considering that the region seems to have learnt from the 1997–8 experience, this should be of interest to scholars and policy-makers in the region and beyond., [The book's arguments are made] cogently and with strong empirical backing.... Moreover, the essays on the region's different economies provide important nuances to the book's central arguments.

T. J. Pempel is Jack M. Forcey Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the coeditor of Crisis as Catalyst: Asia’s Dynamic Political Economy, also from Cornell, and Japan in Crisis: What Will It Take for Japan to Rise Again? Keiichi Tsunekawa is Professor in the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies and Professor Emeritus at the University of Tokyo. He is the author of The State and Private Business and the editor of Democratic Identity: Formation of Emerging Democracies, both in Japanese.