POSITION PAPERS ON INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE RATES.

The article presents information on position papers on international exchange rates. International economic transactions are effected, directly or indirectly, through the exchange of national currencies. Obviously, therefore, the rates at which currencies exchange in such transactions is of extreme importance. Public debate relating to foreign trade is hardly a recent phenomenon. However, from mid-sixteenth century until the mid-1930's, most discussions presupposed either specie flow or fixed exchange rates with bullion convertibility, even when conditions and national objectives were changing drastically. Then, Henry C. Simons, in a series of essays, provided the context and one side's basic arguments for today's most interesting and lively debate. Certainly in the U.S. where bullion convertibility is no longer a real possibility so that changes in the size of the nation's money stock could no longer be tied critically, in any truly permanent and rigorous way, to changes in the size of the nation's "treasure," the crucial policy question now is what sort of exchange-rate system would contribute more to the attainment of the generally accepted and conflicting goals.