ABSTRACT
There has been much controversy about the success with which the two main types of monetary policy can be operated. The French, up to 1958, gave greater priority to expansion and less to price stability than most of their European neighbours and in particular Germans and the British. During the period of the First Plan, credit policy was designed specifically to encourage the programmes of reconstruction and development. The German neo-liberals have regarded monetary stability as the first priority for a competitive order, and Eucken advocated that as far as possible an automatic stabilizer should be built into the monetary system to ensure this. Like the French and the Germans, the British have experienced several phases of monetary policy since the war. The first was the Dalton period of cheap money despite the acute postwar shortage of capital, with the pattern of investment controlled by the restriction of access to the capital market and the allocation of supplies of materials.
