During the period from 1949 to 1974 exchange rates were almost fixed in the OECD area. Since then some major rates have been moving, but even now most rates remain fixed relatively to each other and it is possible that we are returning to more fixed rates. Therefore it is of some relevance to try to summarize the experience of the few exchange rate changes that took place during the fixed rate period. Section II goes through the currency history of 20 main OECD-countries and identifies the 12 devaluations and 3 revaluations which occured in that period.
We have for each of these 15 cases tried to make a comparable story following the time-path of the same 16 main economic indicators - listed in Table 1 - in the last 3 years before the exchange rate change and in the first 3 years after the change. The changes have different sizes (and signs), happened in 9 different countries and are parts of rather different economic policies, but we shall show below that there are, nevertheless, a few main features that appear to generalize.