Banks, the IMF, and the Asian crisis

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of the Asian crisis on bank stocks. In the second half of 1997, Western banks outperformed their stock markets. In contrast, East Asian bank indices incurred losses in excess of 60% in each of the crisis countries. Most of these poor performances are explained by stock market movements in the crisis countries. After taking into account these movements, currency exposures affected banks adversely only in Indonesia and the Philippines. Except for the Korean program, which affected positively bank stocks in all countries in our sample but one, IMF programs had little effect on bank values.