This essay offers an analysis of actual German and Swiss monetary policy that explains this gap between operation and performance. It shows that neither country's central bank can be called a monetary targeter, according to a strict, formal definition of targeting, and it argues that the...

The fifteen newly independent republics of the former Soviet Union began 1992 with a functionning ruble area inherited from the Soviet union. Indeed, early that year, the ruble was atop the currency hit parade; no other currency served as sole legal tender across so many national borders. This...