This paper examines the link between lending booms, asset price cycles, and financial crises across East Asian countries. Both theoretical arguments and empirical evidence support a strong relationship between bank lending and asset price inflation, especially in the real estate market. While asset price bubbles were present in most Asian countries during the 1990s, their subsequent bust has affected countries quite differently. Some countries underwent severe exchange and financial crises, while others were able to weather the storm with much less damage. This experience underlines the importance of a strong bank regulatory system.

This paper examines the link between lending booms, asset price cycles, and financial crises across East Asian countries. Both theoretical arguments and empirical evidence support a strong relationship between bank lending and asset price inflation, especially in the real estate market. While asset price bubbles were present in most Asian countries during the 1990s, their subsequent bust has affected countries quite differently. Some countries underwent severe exchange and financial crises, while others were able to weather the storm with much less damage. This experience underlines the importance of a strong bank regulatory system.

This book by a distinguished academic and a professional economist from the World Bank clearly demonstrates the significant role played by the real estate sector in inducing the Asian crisis; the linkage of the real estate sector to the general economy; the causes of real estate booms and subsequent busts; and the economic costs of real estate price volatility. The book also includes suggestions for moderating such volatility in the future.

The financial crisis showed, once again, that neglecting real estate booms can have disastrous consequences. In this paper, we spell out the circumstances under which a more active policy agenda on this front would be justified. Then, we offer tentative insights on the pros and cons as well as implementation challenges of various policy tools that can be used to contain the damage to the financial system and the economy from real estate boom-bust episodes.

A global look at the reasons behind the recent economic collapse, and the responses to it The speculative bubble in the housing market began to burst in the United States in 2007, and has been followed by ruptures in virtually every asset market in almost every country in the world. Each country proposed a range of policy initiatives to deal with its crisis. Policies that focused upon stabilizing the housing market formed the cornerstone of many of these proposals. This internationally focused book evaluates the genesis of the housing market bubble, the global viral contagion of the crisis, and the policy initiatives undertaken in some of the major economies of the world to counteract its disastrous affects. Unlike other books on the global crisis, this guide deals with the housing sector in addition to the financial sector of individual economies. Countries in many parts of the world were players in either the financial bubble or the housing bubble, or both, but the degree of impact, outcome, and responses varied widely. This is an appropriate time to pull together the lessons from these various experiences. Reveals the housing crisis in the United States as the core of the meltdown Describes the evolution of housing markets and policies in the run-up to the crisis, their impacts, and the responses in European and Asian countries Compares experiences and linkages across countries and points to policy implications and research lessons drawn from these experiences Filled with the insights of well-known contributors with strong contacts in practice and academia, this timely guide discusses the history and evolution of the recent crisis as local to each contributor's part of the world, and examines its distinctive and common features with that of the U.S., the trajectory of its evolution, and the similarities and differences in policy response.

The Global Urban Economic Dialogue series presented here is a platform for all sectors of the society to address urban economic development and particularly its contribution to addressing housing issues. This work carries many new ideas, solutions and innovative best practices from some of the world's leading urban thinkers and practitioners from international organisations, national governments, local authorities, the private sector, and civil society.