1999 Articles

Lessons from East Asia

Stiglitz, Joseph E.

The crisis that began in Thailand in July 1997 has grown now to the point where it represents perhaps the most significant economic event since the Great Depression. Not only has unemployment and poverty in the region soared and output plummeted, but global growth has been seriously affected. Indeed, by some calculations, even assuming a relatively rapid return of the global economy to sustained growth, the total loss of output, relative to the previous trend path, is in the hundreds of billions of dollars.