Never Say Never: Commentary on a Policymaker’s Reflections

Stanley Fischer is a rarity among economic policymakers. He came to the policy world as an internationally recognized intellectual leader on macroeconomic theory and policy. He confronted numerous emerging market crises, including the globally systemic Asian crisis, as the IMF’s First Deputy Managing Director from September 1994 to August 2001. And then, as governor of an emerging economy’s central bank starting in May 2005, he decided the monetary responses to the worldwide crisis of 2008–09 and its aftershocks. Fischer’s unpublished Robbins Lectures, delivered at the London School of Economics late in 2001, drew lessons from his service at the IMF. Did emerging markets follow up on those lessons, and did their preparations help them weather the storm of 2008–09? How have economists’ views, and Fischer’s, changed as a result of the global financial crisis? This paper proposes answers to these questions, focusing on the experiences of three Asian crisis countries, Indonesia, Korea, and Thailand.