The Asian Crisis The financial crisis that erupted in Asia in mid-1997 has led to sharp declines in the currencies, stock markets, and other asset prices of a number of Asian countries. It is hard to understand what these declines will actually do to the world market. This decline is expected to halve the rate of world growth in 1998 from the four percent that was projected pre-crisis to an estimated outcome of about 2 percent. The countries that are included in the East Asian crisis, known as "Tiger" economies, are Hong Kong, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. For these countr