The Real Exchange Rate and The Adjustment Problem: A Synthesis of the Three Classical Approaches to the Balance of Payments. This article presents a synthesis of the three classical approaches to the balance of payments. The synthesis is based on a financing constraint of general validity and its aim is to study the role of the real exchange rate in an adjustment context. The article argues that the recent development of an essentially microeconomic approach to the balance of payments should not question the usefulness of the traditional macroeconomic approaches. An original aspect of the synthesis is the development of a monetary approach free of the usual assumptions of purchasing power and real interest parities and thus suitable for the study of the real instead of the nominal exchange rate JEL (F32, F34).