At the beginning of July 1997 Thailand was forced to allow the baht to fall20% against the $US, triggering a financial crisis across Asia. This crisistoppled governments in the region and sent out a series of shock waves thatthreatened prosperity in the rest of the world. The main symptom of thecrisis was a profound distrust in the currencies of developing countries inAsia which precipitated repeated devaluations in the ‘miracle’economies of Indonesia, South Korea and Malaysia. One of the results of theAsian financial crisis is renewed interest in the monetary relations of theregion, and in the mechanics of the transmission of currency instabilitybetween countries.