This paper demonstrates how a currency board can become vulnerable to a crisis in which the policymaker is forced to devalue. The model is built from two blocks: first, incomplete information about the devaluation cost faced by the policymaker; and second, unemployment persistence. Incomplete information can result in multiple equilibria. In one class of equilibrium the policymaker has a credibility problem and maintaining the currency board is costly in terms of unemployment. If unemployment is persistent then pressure to devalue can build up over time until it becomes unbearable and the policymaker is forced to devalue.

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This paper assesses various crisis resolution proposals using a theoretical model of liquidity and solvency crisis. The model suggests that payments standstills and last‐resort lending are an equally efficient means of dealing with liquidity crises, while coordinated lending through creditor committees is second‐best. Debt write‐downs are preferred to subsidised IMF financing when dealing with solvency crises, because of the negative moral hazard implications of the latter tool. Finally, the model suggests that international bankruptcy court proposals may be superior to existing contractual approaches in securing such write‐downs.

The paper presents a new model of the East Asian crisis which combines three elements-moral hazard, investment collapse, and multiple equilibria-in a single account. The study locates the causes of the crisis in poor financial regulation, highly leveraged financial institutions, and implicit guarantees to the financial sector. The model has a unique long-run equilibrium with overinvestment. But in the short run, in which the capital stock is fixed, there may be multiple equilibria. In a crisis the government is forced to renege on its guarantees; the effect is a rapid reversal of foreign capital flows. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2003.

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