The ECB and Its Watchers XVI

Debate
Low-interest-rate Policy and Non-standard Monetary Policy Measures: Effectiveness and Challenges

a. Will the non-standard monetary policy measures adopted be effective and contribute to a recovery of the real economy?
b. How do the potential costs of these measures (such as moral hazard problems for governments or increased risk-taking) compare to their (desired) benefits?
c. What will be potential downsides of the (inevitable) exit from the unconventional policy measures? How can it be managed to minimize the foreseeable negative effects?
d. Doesn’t the situation of a (possibly) „secular stagnation” in the euro area call for alternative/additional, non-monetary-policy measures? If so: Which ones?

Chair: Otmar Issing (CFS President)

Speakers:
Peter Praet (Member of the Executive Board of the ECB)
Jordi Gali (CREI)
Volker Wieland (IMFS and German Council of Economic Experts)

Lead questions:
Kai Carstensen (University of Kiel)
Paul Sheard (Standard and Poors)
Michael Wickens (University of York)

Debate
Monetary Policy within the New European Financial Regulatory Architecture

a. How has the ECB managed the challenges resulting from its double role as monetary policy maker and financial supervisor?
b. What are the challenges of macroprudential policies for central banks? What (possibly new) role should financial stability play in the monetary policy strategy?
c. What are the likely effects of the new regulatory framework on the structure of the European financial system? Will the monetary transmission mechanism be affected by these changes? If so how?

Chair: Hans-Helmut Kotz (SAFE Policy Center and Harvard University)

Speakers:
Erkki Liikanen (Bank of Finland)
Stephen Cecchetti (Brandeis International Business School)
Caspar G. de Vries (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Lead questions:
Elga Bartsch (Morgan Stanley)
Luigi Buttiglione (Brevan Howard Investment Products Ltd.)

Debate
International Challenges for Monetary Policy

a. How large are the international spillover effects (on advanced and emerging market economics) of unconventional monetary policy measures?
b. What are the likely consequences of the divergence of the ECB’s monetary policy from the Fed’s, BoE’s, ... monetary policy?
c. What challenges does the new international financial landscape pose for monetary policy?

Chair: Michael Binder (IMFS and Goethe University Frankfurt)

Speakers:
Ewald Nowotny (Oesterreichische Nationalbank)
Arminio Fraga Neto (Gávea Investimentos)
Richard C. Koo (Nomura Research Institute)
André Sapir (Université Libre de Bruxelles)

Lead questions:
Erik Nielsen (UniCredit Bank AG)
Beat Siegenthaler (UBS)