Freedom from financial fear: Emerging markets have become more resilient

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Emerging markets have acquired more room for manoeuvre

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Freedom from financial fear

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Macroeconomic resilience

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Out of the traps

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Freedom from financial fear

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IN WALKING A middle path, between self-indulgence and self-mortification, Buddhists face great temptations. This struggle for self-control animates many of their paintings, including “Star’s Seed” by the Thai artist Thawan Duchanee. The painting depicts a muscular man with the mandibles of a rhinoceros beetle—beastly appendages that symbolise man’s base cravings. Only by shedding these cravings, Buddhists believe, can man be free from fear.

The painting hangs on a wall in the Bank of Thailand, which faces its own temptations and fears. Like any central bank, it ...