confidence through gloomy forecasts.’10 This statement is quite disturbing. The IMF had been insisting to countries such as Thailand to be transparent with regards to the release of key information. Yet, if what the statement suggests is true, then it implies that the IMF may have been trying to mislead the market by deliberately distorting the projected economic scenario. It is hoped that the misreading of the scenario stems from errors in assumptions and analysis rather than a deliberate distortion.
11. Whatever the reason behind the misjudgement, it had important implications for the structure of the IMF package. If the current account was to remain in deficit, then how can Thailand recover from its bankruptcy position in terms of foreign currency? Basically, the program had to rely on tight fiscal and monetary policy to control the current account, the generation of a high rollover rate of short-term foreign debt, and also the attraction of new medium to long-term investments through foreign buyouts of domestic enterprises and privatisation of state enterprises.
12. The IMF has been much criticised for the tight fiscal and monetary policy (eg. Sachs 1997). Certainly, if the IMF had got the economic scenario closer to what subsequently happened, it would have made sense to have a much easier fiscal stance, particularly for social safety net programs. The fact that it continued to underestimate the severity of the ensuing recession almost up to the end of 1998 (table 4) meant that the easing of the fiscal target occurred fairly slowly. Taken in conjunction with substantial time lags for fiscal targets to be translated into actual spending due to normal administrative lags, the cushioning
of the social impacts was not very effective.11
13. The tight monetary policy was regarded as essential to dampen capital outflow. By September 1997, short-term interest rates increased by about 1000 basis points from pre- float levels, and continued at high levels until about the third quarter of 1998 (table 5). Some analysts, such as Krugman (1998b), see this as being necessary to try to stem capital outflow at a time when net foreign reserves have almost been depleted. The tight monetary policy fits in with the IMF's strategy of trying to maximise the rollover of short-term debt, given that it was expecting the current account deficit to continue. However, the strategy was not particularly effective. Once the market realises that net foreign reserves have almost been depleted, the Baht depreciated rapidly. An increase in interest rates by about 1000 basis points is hardly sufficient incentive to continue to keep Baht denominated assets. From the start of the float to January 1998, the US$ strengthened against the Baht by more than 100%, so Baht interest rates would have to been extremely high to provide sufficient incentives to rollover short-term debt that matured. Nevertheless, I do believe that a fairly tight monetary policy was necessary. This is not so much for providing effective incentive to prevent net