Recently, De Nederlandsche Bank in coope:ration with the CentER for Economic Research of Tilburg University organised an international conference on monetary policy. This volume contains the papers, comments and speeches given on that occasion. The organisation of such a conference and the publication of this book were possible only through the efforts of a number of people. More in particular I would like to thank the organising committee (prof Onno de Beaufort Wijnholds, assoc prof Sylvester Eijffinger, dr Lex Hoogduin and Broos van der Werff) , Hans Haan the conference manager, Imelda Drubbel and Nicolette Ligtenberg who constituted the conference secretariat, Bert Groothoff who acted as