Policymakers, practitioners and academics alike hold diverse and strong views about the role of speculators in the east Asian financial crisis, and about the role of hedge funds and proprietary trading desks in particular. The views range along a spectrum, where the two ends are that speculators played no independent role in the crisis and that speculators were the causes of the crisis, turning what should have been a modest adjustment of the baht into a fully fledged regional crisis with serious economic and social consequences.

While there is a lack of uniformity in views within countries and regions, it is probably fair to say that most of the critics of the role of hedge funds and other HLIs are based in east Asia and Europe, rather than in the United States where most of the hedge funds and proprietary trading desks are located and where the links with government, the financial markets and academia are strongest.

The controversy about hedge funds has led to two major international studies on their role in financial markets. The first was the IMF study, Hedge Funds and Financial Market Dynamics, led by Barry Eichengreen and Donald Mathieson, which was published in May 1998. The study examined many features of hedge funds and other highly leveraged institutions, including their role in east Asian financial markets in 1997.