The Asian Development Bank plays a useful role not only as an investment banking client but as an investor and a source of research. But like all institutions it is best at finding arguments to justify its existence. Chasing the spectre of Asian monetary union is one of them.
The idea of monetary cooperation has arisen from time to time, most visibly with the Japanese idea of an Asian Monetary Fund in the wake of the regional financial crisis in 1997 - one that was quickly squashed by the US Treasury Department. Since then, however, I have had the occasional conversation with market players and regulators when the idea came up, usually just as speculation....
