Economics institute hosts daylong workshop

Monetary policy was the focus of a daylong workshop hosted April 1 by the Santa Cruz Center for International Economics (SCCIE).

Academic and central bank economists attended the gathering, entitled “The Implications of Uncertainty and Learning for Monetary Policy.”

Several papers were presented during the event, which was held in the Alumni Room at the University Center. A dinner followed the workshop, which was organized by Carl Walsh, professor of economics, and Federico Ravenna, assistant professor of economics.

The research discussed at the workshop focused either on new approaches to incorporating learning behavior into the types of models central banks use to formulate their policy decisions, or on ways of developing monetary policies that perform well when the central bank has only an imperfect knowledge of how the economy behaves.

Ravenna chaired the morning session, which included the presentation of three research papers: Robert J. Tetlow of the Federal Reserve Board with discussant George Evans of the University of Oregon; William A. Branch of UC Irvine with discussant Bruce Preston of Columbia University; and John C. Williams of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco with discussant Steven Durlauf of the University of Wisconsin.

Walsh chaired the afternoon session, which began with a paper written by three economists from the European Central Bank: Vitor Gaspar, Frank Smets, and David Vestin. Vestin presented the paper, which was discussed by Richard Dennis of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. The second session featured Nicoletta Batini of the International Monetary Fund, with discussant Luis-Felipe Zanna of the Federal Reserve Board. The final paper of the day was by Kai Leitemo of the Norwegian School of Management and Ulf Söderström of the Università Bocconi, with Ravenna serving as discussant.

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