The role of the international reserves to short term external debth ratio over the predicting financial crises

As the financial crises which recurred frequently in the developing countries during the 1990?s have appalled these economies, predicting of the financial crises has become one of the important subjects being studied at the national and international literature. In the developing economies, the ratio of the international reserves to the short term foreign debts is one of the most important leading indicators used in predicting the financial crises.It is generally accepted as ?The Reserve Adequacy? where the ratio of international reserves to the short-term foreign debts is minimum 1, in other words where the international reserves are high enough to cover the capital and interest payments of the external and internal foreign currency debts which will become due within a one year term. In the literature, this ratio is evaluated as one of the key indicators of the credibility of an economy.While the decrease of the ratio of the reserves to the short-term foreign debts under the critical value of 1 leads to comments like there is a disorder in the economy or ineffective policies are used; the increase of this ratio over the critical value of 1 is interpreted as the economy is strong enough to front the sudden shocks. Therefore, this ratio is a key macroeconomic indicator for the developing economies which borrow from the financial markets and experience intensive foreign capital flow.In this research, the relationship of this ratio with the financial crises which Turkey and some developing economies are exposed to has been stated with both theoretical and empirical studies. The role of the ratio over the financial crises has been explored by determining the effects of some important macroeconomic indicators over the ratio at times the ratio is under the critical value of 1 and it is discussed whether this ratio is a leading indicator for the financial crises or not.