Tiger! Tiger! burning less bright : first report of the Asian Economic Crisis Monitoring Group

Abstract

The crisis in Asia has dominated economic, financial, and much business thinking for more than seven months. It looks set to continue to do so for an extended period. The effects on the countries concerned, on the region, and on New Zealand are all immediate questions. There are a host of others. What caused the crisis? Was the cause the same in all the countries most affected? People talked about the contagion, but what were the mechanics of the crisis passing from one country to another? How are the societies, as opposed to the financial markets and the traders, reacting? Will there be long-term effects on political stability and security issues in the region? This paper is the first of occasional papers on the crisis which will be published by the International Trade Policy Research Centre in the Commerce Division of Lincoln University. As a phenomenon the crisis is of academic interest but palpably of business interest as well. The series of papers will have material of interest to specialists but will be presented in such a way that it is widely accessible to other readers as well. In such discussions there is always tension between the general and the specific. For the first in the series we have presented and analysed the financial and economic sequence of events broadly. We have also examined political instability and security factors broadly. But in examining the effect on New Zealand we have decided on a sector approach. In this paper we look as the effects on forestry. In the next paper we will deal with education. The financial economic, and trade analysis is given first, the examination of the effects on forestry second, and the political and security section is last.