This volume is the second collection of the series of lectures, held annually at City University, London, in honour of Henry Thornton, the renowned 19th Century monetary economist. As with Monetary Economics in the 1980s (0-333-46220-3), the essays by extremely eminent contributors are wide-ranging in both subject and approach but all develop topics considered by Henry Thornton over a century ago and link historical perspectives to contemporary debates about financial institutions and monetary economics.

Monetary and exchange rate policies of national monetary authorities, together with certain of their consequences, provide the common theme for the studies in this volume. Four of the contributions are mainly concerned with exchange rate policy-decisions to alter fixed parities, intervention by central banks in foreign exchange markets, and the determinants of exchange rates including intervention and the degree of capital mobility. Two studies are oriented to aspects of domestic monetary policy, one examining policy reactions of French monetary authorities, the other concerning the choice of...

The recession which many countries experienced in the early 1990s had certain unusual aspects. Most notably, and common to all countries, was the behaviour of asset prices relative to the general price level. In consequence, reasons were sought to explain the special characteristics of the recession and as a result of the behaviour of asset prices attention turned to 'Debt-Deflation Theories' associated in different forms with Keynes and Irving Fisher. The contributors to this volume discuss the significance of debt deflation. Their striking common feature is that, on the evidence presented...