A Neoclassical Analysis of the Asian Crisis: Business Cycle Accounting for a Small Open Economy

Abstract

This paper applies the business cycle accounting method à la Chari, Kehoe and McGrattan (2007) to a standard neoclassical small open economy model and assesses the economic crises in Hong Kong, Korea and Thailand. Quantitative results show that distortions in production efficiency are important in all countries in accounting for the sudden output collapses while distortions in the investment and international financial markets are not. If domestic or international financial frictions are the main source of the Asian crisis, they must have operated through total factor productivity (TFP).