Managing the Crisis A comparative Assessment

The paper summarises the findings from fourteen country studies from emerging markets (eleven studies) and industrialised countries (US, Germany, UK) on the short-term political and economic management of the 2008/2009 economic and financial crisis. The studies cover the November 2008-November 2009 period.

It is shown that unlike during the 1997 Asian crisis and the Latin American countries' crises before, the emerging markets were much better prepared in their monetary and fiscal fundamentals as well in their political credibility and consistency to launch effective stimulus measures immediately after having recognised the seriousness of the crisis. This overall finding holds even large inter-country differences in the ways and means of political and economic communication between governments, monetary authorities, companies and households are taken into account.