Patrick Artus and Yves Barroux The Applied Econometric Association organised an international conference on "Monetary and Financial Models" in Geneva in January 1987. The purpose of this book is to make available to the public a choice of the papers that were presented at the conference. The selected papers all deal with the setting of monetary targets and the effects of monetary policy on the economy as well as with the analysis of the financial behaviours of economic agents. Other papers presented at the same conference but dealing with the external aspects of monetary policy (exchange rate policy, international coordination of economic policies, international transmission of business cycles, . . . ) are the matter of a distinct publication. The papers put together to make up this book either are theoretical research contributions or consist of applied statistical or econometric work. It seemed to be more logical to start with the more theoretical papers. The topics tackled in the first two parts of the book have in common the fact that they appeared just recently in the field of economic research and deal with the analysis of the behaviour of Central Banks. They analyse this behaviour so as to be able to exhibit its major determinants as well as revealed preferences of Central Banks: this topic comes under the caption "optimal monetary policy and reaction function of the monetary authorities".