Editorial
On February 24 to 25, 2006 an international workshop on “Regional and International Currency Arrangements” was held in Vienna. It was jointly organized by George Tavlas (Bank of Greece) and Eduard Hochreiter (Oesterreichische Nationalbank). Academic economists and researchers from central banks and international organizations presented and discussed current research and tried to review and assess the past experience with and the future challenges for international currency arrangements. A number of papers and the contributions by the discussants presented at this workshop are being made available to a broader audience in the Working Paper series of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank and simultaneously also in the Working Paper Series of the Bank of Greece. The papers and the discussants comments will be published in International Economics and Economic Policy. This volume contains the fifth of these papers. The first ones were issued as OeNB Working Paper No. 120 to 122 and No. 125. In addition to the paper by Sebastian Edwards the Working Paper also contains the contribution of the designated discussant Enrique Alberola.