In the case of Brazil, few analysts point to the banking sector as a core cause of the
current crisis. Strikingly, and in sharp contrast to Asia, the IMF program in Brazil does not
require any banking reforms, instead focussing almost exclusively on fiscal policy. And yet, Brazil
was subject to a rapid reversal in foreign capital flows and has at several points been on the verge
of a full-blown crisis. Thus, weak financial systems provide part of the story in Asia, but do not
fully explain the Asian crisis, and are still less a general explanation of sharp reversals of capital
flows into emerging markets.