The 1997-98 East Asian crises are revisited to draw important lessons and identify the conditions that culminated in the crises. The paper considers various views of the origins of the crisis and its development and spread through the region. This is then set against the larger drama of the transformation of the East Asian miracle into a debacle. All this is placed against the larger context of policy advocacy for financial liberalization, especially since the late 1980s.

The paper argues that the crises were of a new type and were somewhat different from earlier currency and financial crises. While much of the literature emphasizes the problems associated with foreign bank borrowing, this paper also draws attention to the dangers of portfolio capital flows. It considers whether the work of Hyman Minsky anticipated the crisis, and looks at the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in exacerbating the crises. Finally, it suggests six urgent areas for international financial system reform from a development perspective that go beyond crisis avoidance and management.