Although the crisis originated in the United States, its effects are global. As a byproduct of the GFC some European countries faced sovereign debt servicing difficulties requiring financial assistance from the IMF, the ECB and the EU. In the aftermath of the sovereign debt crisis the financial system in the Eurozone turned out to be undercapitalized leading to a recession. The GFC also had serious implications for the emerging markets (see also Yiu et al. 2010). Compared with the EU, the impact of U.S. spillovers on Asia may feed via different channels. The International Monetary Fund (2008) points at economic openness and business cycle links between emerging Asia and the United States. These studies conclude that Asia’s trade and financial links with the United States remain intense, and moreover, that financial links have become even stronger over time. In addition, the Asian business cycle is more correlated with the U.S. business cycle. Although the growth of intra-regional trade’s share in total Asian exports is higher compared to the Unites States, the United States still remains the main export destination for final goods for Asia. Therefore, growth of U.S. demand appears to be a main factor for Asian export growth. For emerging Asia, the crisis is not one of low credit but of falling demand in the U.S. markets. Increased Asian financial openness since the 1990s with financial deregulation and capital account liberalization, makes Asia’s stock markets track changes in the U.S. market very closely. The stronger financial integration with the United States has increased Asia’s cross-border holdings of U.S. financial assets. Moreover, growing foreign involvement in local capital markets increased the vulnerability of Asian financial markets to swings in the U.S. market. This led to spillovers of the global financial crisis to the Asian regional market. The process of deleveraging during the crisis—in which many U.S. financial institutions have difficulties in securing liquidity, forcing them to sell foreign currency denominated assets and repatriate the proceeds—led to a substantial liquidation of assets in emerging Asian markets and considerable capital outflows (Didier et al. 2012). These processes have resulted in abrupt declines in stock and other asset prices across Asia. The sell-off of local currencies accompanying the sudden changes in capital outflows resulted in depreciating Asian currency, especially the South Korean won. Time-varying correlations between stock returns and changes in exchange rate exhibited in Figure 2 corroborate these facts. Downward patterns of negative correlations between the two asset markets in all Asian countries during the GFC episode illustrate that Asia was not immune to the crisis.