Dependency in the modern global economy: Australia and the changing face of Asian finance

Abstract

Theories which attempt to explain the structural features of spatial and temporal changes in the global system have generally underestimated the recent impacts of the international financial system. Japan and Australia are investigated because they illustrate opposite ends of the spectrum of experiences of these impacts. Beyond 1985 Japan became the world's major creditor nation, but in 1992 was facing a severe crisis in its domestic capital markets. Australia embraced the policy route of deregulating and opening its capital markets, only to be left with a massive external debt and a strong dependence of external capital. Japan became Australia's major supplier of capital, but the sectors an..