In the 1970s the Federal Reserve began a policy of targeting monetary growth. Those who viewed this as a positive development felt that such a policy would allow the Fed to signal its intentions to be firm in its pursuit of an antiinflationary agenda. Moreover, if the Fed could pursue its agenda...

While the causes of the collapse of cooperation in maintaining the international gold standard are subject to debate (the lack of a dominant central bank to coordinate global monetary policy versus the nonreflection of disparate inflation rates in exchange rate parities, for example), there is...