Monetary and exchange rate policies of national monetary authorities, together with certain of their consequences, provide the common theme for the studies in this volume. Four of the contributions are mainly concerned with exchange rate policy-decisions to alter fixed parities, intervention by central banks in foreign exchange markets, and the determinants of exchange rates including intervention and the degree of capital mobility. Two studies are oriented to aspects of domestic monetary policy, one examining policy reactions of French monetary authorities, the other concerning the choice of monetary aggregate target as a politically motivated strategy to assign responsibility for macroeconomic outcomes and thus influence the behaviour of decision makers in the macroeconomic policy making process. One contribution investigates the factors that influence the choice of currency in foreign trade, an important factor in determining the importance for exchange market stability of capital movements, and perhaps official intervention. The studies present significant theoretical and empirical results as well as the institutional material.

Acknowledgements - Notes on the Contributors - Introduction - The Choice of Currency in Foreign Trade in Italy; G.Basevi, D.Cocchi and P.L.Lischi - Factors Affecting French Monetary Policy; F.Aftalion - The Political Uses of Monetary Targets; J.T.Woolley - Exchange Rate Intervention and Imperfect Capital Mobility - Central Bank Exchange Rate Policy; D.R.Hodgman and R.W.Resek - Policy-Makers in Crisis: A Study of Two Devaluations; F.H.Capie and G.E.Wood - The DM/Dollar Rate and the Exchange Market Intervention Policy of the Deutsche Bundesbank 1974-1984; M.Willms - Index