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The influence of commodity taxes is studied in a standard neo-classical two-country model of international trade. The analysis focuses on the case where indirect taxation affects the relative price of commodities. It is shown that both the destination principle and the origin principle exert an influence on international specialisation and trade. Since these influences act in opposite directions, shifting from the destination principle to the origin one induces changes in the country specialisation. More precisely, each country is led to increase its production of the good charged with the relatively lower tax. In a common market, this effect turns out to be reinforced by factor movements. Hence, in a common market using the origin principle for indirect taxation without tax harmonisation, international specialisation might be determined by the structure of commodity taxes across countries.

Since 1st January 1994 the "European Union" entered into Phase II of the Economic and Monetary Union (E.M.U.). From 1st January of 1997, a single currency will be introduced in the E.U., if seven member States fulfil by then the convergence criterias defined by the Treaty of Maastricht. If this objective is not achieved, the single currency should be introduced on the 1st January 1999. Yet, at present, the situation in the member countries concerning the fulfilment of these criterias is not very encouraging. Therefore into Phase III of E.M.U. by 1997 does not appear to be very realistic. However the improvement of the overall economic situation as well as the efforts undertaken by the majority of the member States should enable the majority of the European countries to meat the criteria defined in the Maastricht Treaty, except for the public debt ratio. As a matter of fact, in a majority of member countries, this ratio today exceeds the 60% of Gross National Product ceiling as defined in the Maastricht Treaty. And, contrary to the other criterias, because public debt is a stock, this ratio is not likely to be reduced quickly through active economic policies. Projections which can be made in this field with the use of simple assumptions show however that by 1999 about half of the member States will be able to enter into Phase III of E.M.U. if they achieve continuing and strong growth during that period and if real long term interest rates do not exceed too much the economic growth rate. In case these conditions are not fulfilled, numerous countries are at risk to find themselves excluded from phase III owing to the criteria of public debt, either because their public debt is already too high in 1994 and would remain at that level, or because the economic context would develop less favourably than expected. For these countries experiencing macro-economic imbalances which would become acceptable by 1999 thanks to prudent monetary and budgetary politics, an entry into Phase III could then only take place if the criteria of public debt was interpreted with a certain flexibility.

This paper aims at providing a concise and up-to-date overview of the vast literature that has been produced on exchange rates since the contribution of Cassel in 1916. We examine the main theoretical models of exchange rates and assess their empirical validity. In addition to the break down of purchasing power parity, interest rates parity and monetary models, as well as the popularity of the new keynesian models, portfolio balance and speculative bubbles models are also considered.

This text investigates three explanations of 1992-1993 E.M.S. crises. It stresses on the effects of full capital market liberalization in a fixed exchange rates system, on the nature of credibility in the "new E.M.S." and finally on its change with the definition of convergence criteria. Emphasis is put particularly on fiscal aspects. In this new context, it appears that the problem for the E.M.S. in the road to E.M.U. is to find a new policy-mix which allows convergence and growth.

The so-called Gibson paradox lies in the contradiction between repeated empirical results concerning the same pattern of evolution of interest rate and price level on the one hand, and some theoretical forecasts on the other hand. We recall statistical and theoretical analyses of the subject developed for more than a century. From the empirical point of view, we report the gradual improvement of both the production of data and their statistical treatment. We check with modern methods applied on previous data the existence of the positive correlation between interest rate and price level. From the theoretical point of view, we emphasize the existence of two distinct paradoxes insofar as this correlation denies on the one hand the forecast of an inverse relation between interest rate and price level, and on the other hand the statement of a relation between interest rate and the rate of inflation rather than the price level. We recall the solutions propounded by Wicksell and Keynes in the first case, and by Fisher in the second case.