In the conduct of economic policy, the state, represented in practice by its specialised bodies, can impact the economic activity in two major ways : 1) through monetary policy, consisting essentially in the manipulation of the supply of money and, closely related to this, the regulation of the banking and financial sector, i.e. the main milieu where the intertemporal monetary circulation takes places; 2) through fiscal policy, consisting broadly in the various means the government has at its disposal to influence the production and distribution of goods. Both instruments have been heavily used by governments around the world since the start of the current crisis, but the results leave much to desire.