206 COMPARATIVE POLITICAL STUDIES April 1996 Table 1-continued Country 1973-1978 1979-1993 [1979-19891 [1990-1993] 1973-1993 Norway 8.27 17.32 14.08 4.36 22.92 Sweden 12.6 20.58 15.42 11.54 29.69 Average 14.34 17.80 16.54 6.29 26.80 Source:International Monetary Fund,International Financial Statistics Data Base.Periods run from first quarter in the first year to fourth quarter in the last year of the periods. Note:In Panel A,a negative sign indicates the currency appreciated against the Deutsche Mark in the period in question.Coefficients of variation are expressed in percent terms,that is. multiplied by 100 simply for ease of exposition. the DM than most accounts would have it.This is largely because North Sea oil and the Thatcher administration led to a significant appreciation of the pound in the early 1980s,which was reversed with a vengeance in the middle and late 1980s (and with even more of a vengeance after September 1992). In any event,the evidence in Table 1 is meant simply to indicate that data reinforce the more discursive story told above.This is particularly worth doing because in the statistical evaluations that follow,the coefficient of variation figures are used as the dependent variable. The first step is to try to explain increased interest in monetary integration within the EU and among the four non-EU members.14 Again,I argue that higher levels of commercial,financial,and investment flows within the Union should strengthen the position of those most interested in stabilizing currency values.The statistical record does indeed indicate a major increase in the importance of intra-EU trade and payments over the 1970s and 1980s. By far the most reliable intra-EU economic figures are those having to do with trade.Table 2 shows the relationship between manufactured exports within subgroups of EU members,on the one hand,and their combined gross domestic product(GDP),on the other.Manufactured exports are therelevant consideration for my purposes:Agricultural trade is mostly controlled by the CAP,and other nonmanufactured trade is relatively unimportant.And,as explained above,it is exporters of relatively specialized manufactured prod- ucts (rather than standardized commodities)whom I expect to care about currency stability.(Unfortunately,such disaggregated data are not available for the late 1980s and early 1990s,for which total exports are used throughout this study.) As Table 2 indicates,intra-EU manufactured exports have become in- creasingly important since the early 1970s.This is true whether one looks at 14.For ease of exposition,Irefer to these as non-EU members throughout,even though three of the four are now members of the Union