Conference Agenda

conference@imf.org

International Monetary Fund. All rights reserved. For requests for permission to reproduce articles, see Rights and Permissions

IMF Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
IMF Institute  
March 20–21, 2000

Before joining the staff of the IMF, Mr. Mussa was a long-time member of the faculty of the Graduate School of Business of the University of Chicago, where he started as an Associate Professor in 1976 and was promoted to the William H. Abbott Professorship of International Business in 1980. From 1971 to 1976, he was on the faculty of the Department of Economics at the University of Rochester. During this period he also served as a visiting faculty member at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, the London School of Economics, and the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland.

Mr. Mussa has published widely in professional journals and research volumes on topics related to international economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics, and municipal finance. He is a Research Fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research. In 1981, the University of Geneva awarded Mr. Mussa the Prix Mondial Nessim Habif for his research in international economics. In 1987, Mr. Mussa was elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society. By appointment of President Ronald Reagan, Mr. Mussa served as a Member of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers from August 1986 to September 1988.

Monetary Rules

"Alternative Monetary Policy Rules: A Comparison with Historical Settings for the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan"

Author: Bennett McCallum is H. J. Heinz Professor of Economics in the Graduate School of Industrial Administration at Carnegie Mellon University. His other positions include research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, research advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, and fellow of the Econometric Society. Professor McCallum has also been a consultant to the Federal Reserve Board and a visiting scholar at the IMF, the Bank of Japan, and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. He is the author of Monetary Economics: Theory and Policy (Macmillan, 1989) and International Monetary Economics (Oxford Univ. Press, 1996). In addition, he has published over 125 papers on a variety of topics in monetary economics, macroeconomics, and econometrics. He currently serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Monetary Economics; Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking; Economics Letters; and the International Journal of Finance and Economics. He is a former coeditor of the American Economic Review and since 1995 has been coeditor of the Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy.

Discussant: Vincent Raymond Reinhart is currently Deputy Director in the Division of International Finance at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and Associate Economist of the Federal Open Market Committee. His responsibilities include monitoring and analyzing developments in foreign exchange and other international asset markets, commodity markets, and U.S. international transactions. Prior to joining the Division of International Finance in September 1999, he worked for ten years in the Division of Monetary Affairs, where his responsibilities included monitoring and analyzing developments with respect to the structure of the government securities market, the behavior of interest rates, and the monetary and reserve aggregates. From 1983 to 1988, he worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in a variety of capacities in both the Domestic and International Research Departments. He has written extensively on policy and other issues related to monetary transmission mechanism and on alternative auction techniques and Treasury debt management. He participated in drafting a report for the Bank of International Settlements on the macroeconomic and monetary policy implication of the growing use of derivatives, published in November 1994, and a post-mortem on the financial market turmoil of autumn 1998, published in October 1999. He is a graduate of FordhamUniversity, and received graduate degrees in economics at Columbia University.

Monetary Policy Under Inflation Targeting

"How Should Monetary Policy Be Conducted in an Era of Price Stability"

Author: Lars E.O. Svensson has, since 1984, been Professor of International Economics at the Institute for International Economic Studies, Stockholm University. He has published extensively in scholarly journals on monetary economics and monetary policy, exchange rate theory and policy, and general international macroeconomics. He is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a research fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, London, a fellow of the Econometric Society, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, chair of the Prize Committee for the Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, a member of Academia Europea, and a foreign member of the Finnish Academy. He regularly consults for international, U.S., and Swedish agencies and organizations. He is active as advisor to Sveriges Riksbank (Bank of Sweden).

Discussant: Timothy Lane is Chief of the Policy Review Division in the IMF's Policy Development and Review Department. This division undertakes studies assessing the design of and experience with IMF-supported programs; a recent example is IMF-Supported Programs in Indonesia, Korea, and Thailand: A Preliminary Assessment, published in June 1999. The division is currently preparing a set of papers on the implications of capital mobility for conditionality. Mr. Lane was previously in the IMF's European I Department, where he worked on industrial countries, including Italy and the United Kingdom; and in the Capital Markets Division of the Research Department. Prior to joining the IMF in 1988, he held positions as assistant professor of economics at Michigan State University and at the University of Iowa. A Canadian citizen, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Western Ontario.

Inflation Targeting in Canada

"The Framework for the Conduct of Monetary Policy in Canada: Some Recent Developments" and "The Canadian Experience with Targets for Reducing and Controlling Inflation"

Author: Charles Freedman was appointed Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada in September 1988. His principal concerns relate to the design of monetary policy and issues regarding financial institutions and clearing and settlement systems. Mr. Freedman is a graduate of University of Toronto and Oxford University and received his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to joining the Bank of Canada's Research Department in 1974, Mr. Freedman was a faculty member at the University of Minnesota and a research consultant for the Bank. In 1978 he became Deputy Chief of the Department of Monetary and Financial Analysis and was named Chief of the Department in 1979. He was appointed Adviser to the Governor in 1984, with special responsibility for the Department of Monetary and Financial Analysis. During 1989-90, Mr. Freedman spent 11 months at the Department of Finance as the Clifford Clark Visiting Economist. He is currently cochair of the Payments System Advisory Committee to the Department of Finance. Mr. Freedman is a member of both the Canadian and American Economics Associations.

Inflation Targeting in New Zealand

"Inflation Targeting in New Zealand"

Author: David Archer joined the Reserve Bank of New Zealand in late 1978 as an economist in the Economics Department. He worked mainly in monetary policy, with a brief spell in forecasting and financial markets. He was rapidly promoted to section manager, then senior adviser. Mr. Archer joined the IMF (on secondment from the Bank) in 1987. He worked in the Maritime Division of the European Department, as Desk Economist responsible for analyzing the Australian, Irish, and UK economies. Mr. Archer returned to the Bank of New Zealand in 1991, as Senior Adviser in the Economics Department. He acted as Chief Manager of the Department from August 1992 through April 1994 and was appointed Chief Manager, Financial Markets Department, in August 1995. He was appointed Assistant Governor July 1998. In recent years, Mr. Archer has focused mainly on monetary theory and practice, but has also contributed to the Bank's work in prudential supervision, debt management, financial market operations, and general management.

Chairperson: Mohsin S. Khan, Director, IMF Institute. Mr. Khan holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics. He joined the IMF in 1972 as an Economist in the Research Department, where he held increasingly senior positions, including Advisor, Assistant Director, and Senior Advisor of the Department. He was Deputy Director of the Research Department before joining the IMF Institute in 1996. He serves on the editorial boards of 10 academic journals and is currently a member of the Advisory Committee of the African Economic Research Consortium in Nairobi, Kenya. He has also produced numerous publications including 5 books and more than 100 articles on macroeconomic and monetary policies in developing countries, economic growth, international trade and finance, and Islamic banking.

Inflation Targeting in the United Kingdom

"Ghostbusting: The UK Experience of Inflation-Targeting"

Author: Andrew Haldane is the Head of International Finance Division (IFD), Financial Stability at the Bank of England. Prior to joining IFD, Mr. Haldane was a manager in the Bank's Monetary Policy Division. He has been involved in technical assistance missions to Poland, Israel, Norway, Czech Republic and most recently Brazil. Mr. Haldane has lectured at City University and the University of London. His main research interests are design of monetary policy frameworks; the transmission mechanism of monetary policy; the role of alternative monetary policy instruments, rules, and regimes; the welfare benefits of price and financial stability; the central bank independence and accountability and models of financial crisis. Mr. Haldane is the author of many publications and working papers on these issues.

Chairperson: Peter Montiel, Senior Policy Advisor, IMF Institute. Professor Montiel holds a Ph.D. from MIT. He is currently on sabbatical from Williams College where he is professor of economics. His specialty is open-economy macroeconomics. From 1991 to 1996, he was a Danforth-Lewis Professor of Economics at Oberlin College. From 1994 to 1995, he was Chief of the Macroeconomics and Growth Division of the Policy Research Department in the World Bank. His early career began at the IMF, where he worked in the Research Department and was Deputy Division Chief, Developing Country Studies Division. He has published extensively, including several books and papers on development economics.

Inflation Targeting in Israel

"Monetary Policy Rules and Transmission Mechanisms Under Inflation Targeting in Israel"

Author: Leonardo Leiderman is Senior Director at the Bank of Israel and head of its Research Department. He is also professor of economics at the Eitan Berglas School of Economics, Tel Aviv University, and a research fellow in CEPR's International Macroeconomics Programme. Mr. Leiderman obtained his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago. From 1988 to 1991 he was chairman of the Department of Economics at Tel Aviv University and from 1993 to 1996 he was director of the Pinhas Sapit Centre for Development at Tel Aviv University. Mr. Leiderman joined the Bank of Israel in mid 1996. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Chicago and a visiting scholar at the research department of the IMF, the World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank. Mr. Leiderman has published numerous research papers in leading journal and several books in macroeconomics, international finance, monetary theory and policy, and the economics of the inflation process. His most recent work features contributions to the growing literature on monetary policy and exchange rate policy under inflation targeting.

Chairperson: Claudio Loser has been the Director of the IMF's Western Hemisphere Department since 1994. Mr. Loser, a national of Argentina, has an extensive background in economic issues in Latin America. Mr. Loser graduated from the University of Cuyo in Argentina and received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1971. Mr. Loser taught international economics and finance at the University of Cuyo and at American University in Washington, D.C., and consulted with the Andean Group in Lima, Peru. He began his IMF career 27 years ago, spending the last 15 years in the Western Hemisphere Department.

Inflation Targeting in Mexico

"Mexico's Monetary Policy Framework Under A Floating Exchange Rate Regime"

Author: Agustin Carstens is the Executive Director for Central America, Mexico, Spain and Venezuela at the IMF. He holds an M.A. (1983) and a Ph.D. (1985) in economics from the University of Chicago and a Bachelors of Science, in economics, from the Mexican Autonomous Institute of Technology (ITAM). Mr. Carstens has been associated with Banco de México since 1980, where his positions included Director of the Economic Research Department, Director and Chief Advisor to the Governor, and Treasurer. He was also President of the Network of Economic Researchers of Latin American Central Banks in 1998 and Representative of Banco de México in Mexico's external debt Negotiations in 1989-90 and 1994-95.

"Mexico's Monetary Policy Framework Under A Floating Exchange Rate Regime"

Author: Alejandro Werner, Director, Economic Studies, Banco de México, Dirección General de Investigación Económica. Mr. Werner holds a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He joined Banco de México in 1996 as an Economist. Prior to that post, Mr. Werner worked as an economist in the Research Department of the IMF. He also served as visiting assistant professor, Department of Economics, Yale University, from 1994-95, and advisor to the Undersecretary of the Mexican Treasury from 1988-90.

Inflation Targeting in Brazil

"Implementing Inflation Targeting in Brazil"

Author: Sérgio Ribeiro da Costa Werlang is Director of Economic Policy of the Central Bank of Brazil and until recently professor of economics at the Graduate School of Economics of Fundação Getúlio Vargas. Prior to joining the Central Bank, Mr. Werlang was Managing Director and before that Executive Director of Banco BBM S/A. In addition, he has held a number of senior positions both at the Central Bank and the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Planning. Mr. Werlang received his engineering degree from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro and his Ph.D. from Stanford University.

Chair: Mohsin S. Khan

Conclusions on Inflation Targeting