Ten years ago Monday, Asia was hit by an economic "bug" that wiped out billions of dollars of wealth, cost millions of jobs and shattered the confidence of a region. Those losses have largely been made up, and Asia today is in many ways stronger than it was in 1997. Although lessons have been learned, the region is still vulnerable to shocks. More needs to be done to protect Asian economies from a recurrence of "baht-ulism."
The Asian economic crisis began July 2, 1997, when Thailand devalued its currency, the baht. Speculators sensed vulnerability in other regional currencies and launched assaults on them. Bubbles in real estate and stock markets burst, destroying wealth and wreaking havoc throughout East Asia.
In the past decade, much of that damage has been undone, and Asia again has become the fastest growing region in the world economy. Today, the World Bank notes that "the region is far wealthier, has fewer poor people and a larger global role than ever before."