Hungary, Malaysia, Mexico Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, and Tur- key. There was also relatively free entry" and free exit in Chile, Korea, Thailand, and Venezuela. The was "relatively free entry" and "some restric- tions" on exit in Indonesia. Formally, the was free entry and exit only for anecdotal special classes of in China and the Philippines, although the in anecdotal evidence suggests that these capital controls have only really been effective China. Only authorized investors were allowed into Colombia and India, but free exit allowed. The tightest market access, according to the 1FC were was in was in and there Taiwan, where only authorized investors were allowed some restrictions" on the repatriation of income and capital. The IFC did not classify Hong Kong, Israel, and Singapore the extent of the We follow the literature on the Asian crisis by regarding nominal exchange rate depreciation as the key variable to be explained. Spec ally, our most important dependent variable is the change in the nominal exchange rate from the end of 1996 to January 1999 We the end of the starting point and measure the change in purchasing power over the next two years of currencies relative to the US. dollar. If the exchange rate from 2,500 to 10,000 to the dollar (as with the Indonesian rupiah), it has lost three-quarters of its purchasing power (ie. four times as many rupiah are needed to buy one dollar). Alternatively, its purchasing power now is one-quarter of its former level and this country would score 0.25 in our index of change in purchasing power. Table 2 shows the exchange rates and change in purchasing power of exchange rates for alternative ending points for the 25 countries in our sample.