This working Paper has been prepared in response to the lack of clarity and, at times, the distorted use of the term “balance of payments adjustment" as well as the "costs" of such adjustment. References to adjustment and its costs abound in the recent literature but these terms are almost never defined, even though, on examination, their meaning is far from self-evident. We here attempt to respond to this deficiency before turning to discuss some problems associated with the design of adjustment programmes in developing countries and with the long-term retreat from the notion of adjustment as an international process. The paper is in the form of a series of notes, rather than a continuous argument.