Hyderabad: Imperfections in capital markets have drawn flak from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who said the loopholes generated information bubbles and a herd mentality among investors, sparking the spread of financial crises.
The 1997 Asian crisis had demonstrated that financial crises could be contagious as a result of imperfections in the capital markets, Singh said at the opening session of the annual meeting of ADB board of governors here.
In panic situation, markets did not adequately discriminate between countries with strong and weak economic fundamentals and seemingly strong economies could be engulfed by a snowballing crisis, he said.
The Asian financial crisis hit countries that had built up an enviable reputation as miracle economies.
The crisis arose due to four important factors. The exchange rates were pegged at unsustainable levels, which triggered a crisis.
Another reason was the fragility of financial systems that allowed enterprises to borrow without any regard for mismatches in current composition or maturity profile.
Crisis arose also due to the flawed regulatory infrastructure in financial sector and due to the inadequacy of governmental systems in monitoring the quantum and nature of capital flows.
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