Introduction

Abstract

The research that has culminated in this book was prompted, I now realise, by an incident that took place on one dreary October morning in 1997 in Minsk, capital of Belarus. It was my first day at work in one of the city’s young investment firms. As a graduate student in economics, I was thrilled to have secured the post of financial analyst (whatever that might mean) in one of the city’s thriving new financial institutions. Yet as I turned up at the smart office in the centre of Minsk, I was rather disappointed to learn that my new colleagues were distinctly uninterested in the new addition to their team. They were instead glued to computer screens, repeating ominously ‘Asia is falling!’