Crises: Yesterday and Today

November 7-8, 2013



Fourteenth  Jacques  Polak  Annual  Research Conference Research  Department, IMF

The International Monetary Fund will hold the Fourteenth Jacques Polak Annual Research Conference at its headquarters in Washington DC on November 7-8, 2013.

The theme of this year's conference is “Crises: Yesterday and Today.” The conference is intended to provide a forum for discussing innovative research on a wide range of issues on crises and to facilitate the exchange of views among researchers and policymakers.

This year’s conference will also honor Stanley Fischer’s contributions to economic research and policy. Fischer has extensively studied economic and financial crises, first as a faculty member at MIT, then as a policymaker, the Chief Economist of the World Bank, the First Deputy Managing Director of the IMF, and the Governor of the Bank of Israel. The conference will bring together an outstanding array of economists and policymakers, many of whom studied, or worked in collaboration with Fischer. Paul Krugman (Princeton University) will deliver the Mundell-Fleming Lecture.

The deadline for public registration was Thursday, October 31, 2013. Registered attendees will be required to present photo identification on entering the IMF at 1900 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington D.C. For questions regarding the conference, please send an email to ARC@imf.org.

Please note that, for this event, invitations for visa purposes will be extended only to the conference participants.



Join the conversation via #ARCPolak

Crises: Yesterday and Today
Thursday, November 7, 2013

8:00–8:45 am

Registration and Continental Breakfast

8:45–9:15 am

Opening Remarks

David Lipton (First Deputy Managing Director, IMF)

Video: Opening Remarks

9:15–10:35 am

Session 1: Capital Flows and Liquidity Provision

Chair: David Lipton (First Deputy Managing Director, IMF)

Unintended Consequences of LOLR Facilities: The Case of Illiquid Leverage

Viral V. Acharya (New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business) and Bruce Tuckman (New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business)
PresentationSee the presentation

Discussant: Ricardo Caballero (MIT)

Dilemma not Trilemma? Capital Controls and Exchange Rates with Volatile Capital Flows

Emmanuel Farhi (Harvard University) and Ivan Werning (MIT)

Discussant: Guy Debelle (Reserve Bank of Australia)
PresentationSee the presentation

Video: Session I

10:35–10:50 am

***Coffee Break***

10:50–12:10pm

Session 2: Lessons—The Case of Japan and Monetary Policy Independence

Chair: Masood Ahmed (IMF)

Will the U.S. and Europe Avoid a Lost Decade? Lessons from Japan’s Post Crisis Experience

Takeo Hoshi (Stanford University) and Anil Kashyap (University of Chicago Booth School of Business)

PresentationSee the presentation

Discussant: David Romer (University of California, Berkeley)
PresentationSee the presentation

Goal Dependence for Central Banks: Is the Malign View Correct?”

Kenneth N. Kuttner (Williams College) and Adam S. Posen (Peterson Institute)

PresentationSee the presentation

Discussant: Frederic Mishkin (Columbia Business School)

PresentationSee the presentation

Video: Session II

12:15–1:45 pm

***Lunch***
(By invitation only, HQ2, Conference Hall 2)
Luncheon Remarks – Tribute to Stanley Fischer: Mohamed El-Erian (Pimco)

Video: Luncheon Remarks

1:45–3:45pm

Session 3: Lessons—Exchange Rate Regimes and Cost of Crisis

Chair: Kemal Dervis (The Brookings Institution)

Exchange Rate Management and Crisis Susceptibility: A Reassessment

Atish R. Ghosh (IMF), Jonathan D. Ostry (IMF), and Mahvash S. Qureshi (IMF)

PresentationSee the presentation

Discussant: Jeffrey Frankel (Harvard University)
PresentationSee the presentation

Aggregate Supply in the United States: Recent Developments and Implications for the Conduct of Monetary Policy

David Reifschneider (Federal Reserve Board), William L. Wascher (Federal Reserve Board), and David W. Wilcox (Federal Reserve Board)

PresentationSee the presentation

Discussant: Gregory Mankiw (Harvard University)

PresentationSee the presentation

Pegs in Latin America, Lessons for Europe?

Ariel Burstein (UCLA) and Ivan Werning (MIT)
PresentationSee the presentation

Discussant: Alberto Martin (IMF, CREI, UPF and Barcelona GSE)

Video: Session III

3:45–4:00 pm

***Coffee Break***

4:00–5:30 pm

Mundell-Fleming Lecture

Currency Regimes, Capital Flows, and Crises

Paul Krugman (Princeton University)

PresentationSee the presentation

Introduction by: Olivier Blanchard (Economic Counsellor and Director, Research Department, IMF)

Video: Mundell-Fleming Lecture

Friday, November 8, 2013

8:30–9:15 am

Registration and Continental Breakfast

9:15–10:35 am

Session 4: Then and Now—Latin America

Chair: Alejandro M. Werner (IMF)

Latin America and the Global Financial Crisis

Roberto Alvarez (Universidad de Chile) and José De Gregorio (Universidad de Chile)


PresentationSee the presentation

Discussant: Ilan Goldfajn (Itau Unibanco)
PresentationSee the presentation

The Road to Redemption: Policy Response to Crises in Latin America

Guillermo Vuletin (The Brookings Institution) and Carlos A. Vegh (Johns Hopkins University)
PresentationSee the presentation

Discussant: Vittorio Corbo (Centro de Estudios Publicos, Chile)
PresentationSee the presentation

Video: Session IV

10:35–10:50 am

***Coffee Break***

10:50–12:10 pm

Session 5: Then and Now—Policies and Resilience

Chair: George Akerlof (IMF)

The Federal Reserve’s Framework for Monetary Policy – Recent Changes and New Questions

William English (Federal Reserve Board), David López-Salido (Federal Reserve Board) and Robert Tetlow (Federal Reserve Board)
PresentationSee the presentation

Discussant: Christina Romer (University of California, Berkeley)
PresentationSee the presentation

Pick Your Poison: The Choices and Consequences of Policy Responses to Crises

Kristin Forbes (MIT Sloan School of Management) and Michael W. Klein (Tufts-Fletcher School)
PresentationSee the presentation

Discussant: Jeffrey Sachs (Columbia University)

Video: Session V

12:15–1:45 pm

***Lunch***
(By invitation only, HQ2, Conference Hall 2)
Luncheon Remarks – Tribute to Stanley Fischer
Ratna Sahay (IMF) and
Karnit Flug (Bank of Israel)

Video: Luncheon Remarks

1:45–3:05 pm

Session 6: Then and Now—East Asia

Chair: Dan Citrin (IMF)

Two Tales of Adjustment: East Asian Lessons for European Growth

Anusha Chari (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and Peter Blair Henry (New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business)
PresentationSee the presentation

Discussant: Morris Goldstein (Peterson Institute)



PresentationSee the presentation

Never Say Never: Commentary on a Policymaker’s Reflections

Maurice Obstfeld (University of California, Berkeley)

PresentationSee the presentation

Discussant: Carmen Reinhart (Harvard University)

Video: Session VI

3:05–3:30

***Coffee Break***

3:30–5:00

Economic Forum: Policy Responses to Crises

Moderator: Olivier Blanchard, Economic Counsellor and Director, Research Department, IMF

Panelists:

1. Ben Bernanke
The Crisis as a Classic Financial Panic

2. Stanley Fischer

3. Kenneth Rogoff

4. Lawrence H. Summers

Video: Economic Forum

Conference Organizing Committee: M. Ayhan Kose (Conference Chair, IMF; Co-Editor, IMF Economic Review), Suman Basu, Mai Dao, Davide Furceri, and Rafael Portillo, (All IMF) and Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas (Editor of the IMF Economic Review; University of California, Berkeley).

Conference Coordinator: Tracey Lookadoo