Conference: Monetary policy before, during and after the crisis

Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE), Money, Macro & Finance Research Group (M MF) and Heriot-Watt University

29- 30 September 2011

Edinburgh Business School, Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton, Edinburgh 

This conference brings together a group of academic and central bank economists to review the issues around monetary policy before, during and after the crisis, and to produce a set of papers which will be a key reference on the topic for future researchers. It is a two-day conference, in which Thursday 29 September is a training day for PhD students and young researchers, while Friday 30 September is the full conference. Everyone is welcome, to attend one or both days, but to help with catering please register (for one or both days) no later than 15 September with Yuka Scott at y.scott@hw.ac.uk. Participants needing accommodation for Thursday and/or Friday night may arrange this directly via http://www.edinburgh-conference.com/Accommodation_at_ECC..

Thursday 29 September

The aim of this training day is twofold:

• first, to explain and discuss the issues and methods involved in analysing past and present monetary policy decision-making: how do we estimate policy rules, what are the difficulties in estimation and interpretation, what about the alternative ‘narrative approach’?
• second, to explain and discuss the historical development of macroeconomics and the controversies which have come to prominence since the financial crisis, with a review of the history followed by a panel discussion on the controversies in macro featuring John Driffill, Marcus Miller, Charles Nolan and another

Students are also encouraged to present posters of their own work, which will be ‘hung’ on the Thursday after the buffet lunch, and open to conference participants in a poster session on the Friday. There will be prizes for the best posters. Further information on posters is available here.

The day will start at 1100, to facilitate travel from elsewhere in Scotland and the UK, and conclude at 1800. Further information on the Thursday programme is available here. 

Friday 30 September

This is a full conference day, starting at 0900 and ending at 1830. There will be eight papers on aspects of monetary policy before, during and after the crisis, presented by authors from central banks (e.g. Ed Nelson from the Fed, Laurent Clerc from the Banque de France, Mark Stone from the IMF, Philip Turner from the BIS) and academe (e.g. John Driffill from Birkbeck, Marcus Miller from Warwick). There will be a poster session after a buffet lunch. The day will finish with a round table on the lessons for monetary policy to be drawn from the experience of the crisis. Further information on the the Friday programme is available here.