Since the advent of managed floating rates in 1973, the frequency and size of U.S. foreign-exchange interventions have varied. Intervention was substantial from 1977 to 1979, when the dollar’s exchange value was considered to be unacceptably low. American stabilization operations were minimal during the Reagan administration’s first term, consistent with its goal of limiting government interference in markets; they were directed at offsetting short-term market disruptions. Intervention was again substantial in 1985, when the dollar’s exchange value was deemed unacceptably high, hurting the competitiveness of U.S. producers. The most extensive U.S. intervention operations took place after the Louvre Accord of 1987, when the major industrial nations reached informal understandings about the limits of tolerance for exchange-rate fluctuations.