FGV/EPGE - Graduate School of Economics held, on Sunday July 30, the opening class of the discipline Contemporary Issues II, with Professor Fernando de Holanda Barbosa. In the lecture, Holanda addressed Monetary Theory and Policy and pointed out that the main puzzle of this theory is determining the price of the currency - a financial asset dominated by other assets, he explained. He further added that the monetary theory seeks to understand how the currency can affect the actual product and the level of employment in the short and long terms. During the seminar, Holanda also spoke about the importance of the Central Bank and its conduction of monetary policy, the monetary policy regimes, transmission channels and economic effects. At the end, the professor presented an overview of the economic history of Brazil, from the macroeconomic indiscipline view for many decades until the Real Plan, launched in 1994, when there was an important shift in the monetary policy regime. The case of the United States was also examined, from the Great Recession, going by the period so called Keneysianisma Era, until the recent economic crisis. Professor Fernando de Holanda Barbosa occupied the position of Secretary of Economic Policy during Itamar Franco's presidency.