This paper describes the monetary policy response of countries during the inter-war period. How did central banks react to the Great Depression? How did countries balance the externals demands of the gold standard with domestic policy pressures? What was the optimal level of international policy...

Asset price inflation presents central banks with a puzzle. I examine the case of Germany, 1925-7, when the Reichsbank intervened to bring down stock prices, rectify imbalances and curb speculation. Present value relations, comparisons with historical valuation measures and the time-series...

Was the German slump inevitable? This paper argues that -despite the speed and depth of Germany's deflation in the early 1930s - fear of inflation is evident in the bond, foreign exchange, and commodity markets at certain critical junctures of the Great Depression. Therefore, policy options were...

In May 1927, the German central bank intervened indirectly to reduce lending to equity investors. The crash that followed ended the only stock market boom during Germany’s relative stabilization 1924-28. This paper examines the factors that lead to the intervention as well as its consequences....

Central banking in France from 1948 to 1973 was a paradigmatic example of a policy that relied on quantities rather than interest rates. Standard SVAR analyses support the common view that monetary policy was ineffective during this period. However, this approach fails to identify the stance of...

Les nations du sud de la zone Euro ont connu la prospérité dans les années qui ont suivi la création de la monnaie unique. Le bond de la consommation et l’élévation du niveau de vie se sont hélas révélés être des mirages. En favorisant un endettement massif, l’Euro a encouragé un...

2003 marks the 40th anniversary of the founding of SUERF. To mark this milestone, some time ago the Council of Management commissioned Professor Jean-Paul Abraham to write a commemorative report. His mandate was not to write a history of SUERF itself (that would be too self-indulgent) but to...

This paper documents Norges Bank’s role in the long transition period from a fixed exchange rate regime to inflation targeting in Norway. It is shown that the Bank’s leadership and influential department leaders wanted more exchange rate flexibility from early on. However, due to the...

This paper analyses the Belgian monetary and exchange rate policies at the time of Bretton Woods. It sheds light on the groping adjustment process by which internal economic policies are hit by or adapt to the external constraints. In 1944, an ambitious monetary reform laid down the economic...