A method for interpreting Raman intensities is proposed. Free from rotational contributions atomic polarizability tensors are transformed into quantities termed effective induced bond charges σ k . The new quantity is expected to be associated with polarizability properties of chemical bonds. The formulation developed is applied in analyzing atomic polarizability tensors obtained from HF/6-311 + G * * ab initio MO calculations for a series of 17 molecules: CH 4 , NH 3 , H 2 O, HF, SiH 4 , PH 3 , H 2 S, HCl, CH 3 CH 3 , CH 3 NH 2 , CH 3 OH, CH 3 F, CH 2 CH 2 , CH 2 NH, CH 2 O, CH 2 S and s-trans-butadiene. The trends of changes of σ k are discussed.