The management of the exchange rate by the Russian authorities obviously lacks both effectiveness and efficiency. "Black Tuesday" has vividly shown how vulnerable the rouble is to speculative attacks. In this article, a "classical" proposal is evoked and is discussed as an alternative to the...

Leaving foreign exchange markets to themselves may not lead to realistic and stable exchange rates. Thus appropriate criteria for interference must be defined. The OPTICA (Optimal Currency Area) Group which was appointed by the European Commission tried to work out appropriate rules for the EC....

The Tobin tax idea, developed during the 1970s as a tax on foreign-exchange transactions, has found its way back into the academic and policy debates, since the Copenhagen World Social Summit and the G7 Summit in early 1995 at the latest. At both events, proposals were put forward to impose a...

In retrospect, the decade of sixties has witnessed substantial upheavals and achievements in the international monetary sphere. Massive flows of hot money from one country to another have stimulated international cooperation on a large scale. The two-tier gold system seems to be an unparalleled...

Every currency crisis of recent years has been accompanied by a migration of billions of short-term money. Both experts and laymen have again and again been amazed at the speed at which, at relatively short notice, these enormous sums could be mobilised.