Mr. Grenville discusses exchange rates and crises against the background of the financial turmoil in Asia* Talk by Mr. Stephen Grenville, a Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, to the Third Biennial Pacific Rim Allied Economic Organizations Conference in Bangkok on 16/1/98. Economists have an unenviable reputation for being practitioners of the “dismal science”, but this is undeserved.
On the other hand, while corporate loans are rising – albeit moderately – in the United States and Japan, those in the euro area and the United Kingdom have continued to decline. Features common to the four economies are ample retained earnings, easy access to bond financing for large firms, and concerns about future economic uncertainty (Chart 5).