In the new situation with flexible exchange rates, monetary policy in Europe will have to rely more on indicators than previously under fixed rates. One of the potential indicators, the forward interest rate curve, can be used to indicate market expectations of the time-paths of future short...

The paper reviews the theoretical foundations of the use of forward interest rates to infer expected future rates of interest, inflation, currency depreciation and inflation differentials. Forward rates are related to these expected future variables via combinations of term, inflation and...