In 1997, all fi ve Asian countries experienced currency crises: Th e sequence of abandonment of pegs,
or the equivalent, was Th ailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Korea. Each of these countries
had soft-peg exchange rate regimes, and the bulk of the eff ective depreciations were in the second half of
the year, after the Th ai devaluation, and in many cases in the fi nal two or three months of the year. Th e
decline in their real eff ective exchange rates (broad Bank for International Settlements (BIS) series) over the
12 months ending in December, ranged from 18 percent for the Philippines to 40 percent for Indonesia.
As the pegs gave way, currency and maturity mismatches emerged; see Morris Goldstein (1998). Th e
foreign exchange depreciations, in turn, further fueled the panic, weakened balance sheets, exacerbated
recessions, at least in the short run, and constrained policy choices.