Three monetary regimes - the gold standard, a regime of 'socialism in many countries' and the post-Bretton Woods regime - and difficult transitions between them have shaped the economic history of the twentieth century. The regimes consisted of coherent sets of government policies and equally...

Central banks in developing countries, wanting to devalue the domestic currency, usually intervene in the foreign exchange market by buying up foreign currency using domestic money-often backing this up with sterilization to counter inflationary pressures. Such interventions are usually...