The Rising of Asian Values and the Financial Crisis: The Cases of Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore

Abstract

Following the recent financial crisis, people are asking why the Asian countries are suffering less in this crisis than their Western counterparts, signalling a highly consequential shift of financial and commercial gravity to the east. This paper is intended to unearth the real merits of ‘Asian values/models’.

As former British colonies which still maintain a common law system, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore share some similarities but at the same time have some differences, thereby providing three unique case studies to examine the impacts of the financial crisis on these economies.

This paper first offers a brief review of the economic and financial systems of Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. Then, it analyses their development of regulatory systems in the financial markets. Afterwards, it moves on to evaluate the impacts of the crisis on their economy including GDP, banking, stock market and trade, followed by their policy and regulatory responses to such crisis. The final part concludes that Asian values as a new model for development have helped the three economies survive in a global financial hurricane.

Keywords: financial crisis, impact, policy and regulatory response, Asian values, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia

JEL Classification: G18, G28, K22