Central Bankers' Jackson Hole Retreat: A Cheat Sheet
23 August 2019 - 10:29AM
Dow Jones News
By Nick Timiraos
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. -- For the central bankers gathered in the
Grand Tetons, a meaty discussion of exchange rates and monetary
policy spillovers will take precedence over fly fishing and
mountain hiking.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's annual economic
retreat began Thursday evening and runs through Saturday at its
traditional venue, the Jackson Lake Lodge, selected decades ago for
its appeal to former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, a fly-fishing
enthusiast.
Attendance is by invitation only. Here is a cheat sheet on what
to expect over the next few days:
On the Agenda
The theme of this year's conference is "Challenges for Monetary
Policy." Kansas City Fed President Esther George will host an
opening reception Thursday evening.
The conference gets under way Friday morning. At 10 a.m. EDT
Friday, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will deliver a speech with the
same title as the conference theme.
After he speaks, three research papers will be presented and
discussed. Bank of England Gov. Mark Carney delivers the lunchtime
keynote address.
On Saturday, two more research papers will be presented and
discussed. A concluding panel will feature Gita Gopinath , chief
economist of the International Monetary Fund, with two central
bankers -- Philip Lowe , governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia,
and Amir Yaron , governor of the Bank of Israel.
In Attendance
This year's conference features another star-studded attendance
list, at least for the world of central banking.
-- In addition to Mr. Powell, all four other Fed governors are
coming. Eleven of the Fed's reserve bank presidents are also on the
list. (San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly is absent.)
-- The participants, as usual, include a strong contingent of
foreign central bankers. Among them are three European Central Bank
officials, Benoît Coeuré , Philip Lane and Sabine Lautenschläger;
Bank for International Settlements General Manager Agustín Carstens
; Bank of Canada Gov. Stephen Poloz; South African Reserve Bank
Gov. Lesetja Kganyago; Hong Kong Monetary Authority Chief Executive
Norman Chan ; Bank of Mexico Gov. Alejandro Díaz de León; Sveriges
Riksbank Gov. Stefan Ingves; Bank of Finland Gov. Olli Rehn; Bank
of Japan Deputy Gov. Masazumi Wakatabe; Reserve Bank of Peru Gov.
Julio Velarde; Norges Bank Gov. Øystein Olsen; De Nederlandsche
Bank President Klaas Knot ; Reserve Bank of New Zealand Gov. Adrian
Orr; Danmarks Nationalbank Governor Lars Rohde ; Bank of Latvia
Gov. Ilm rs Rimšēvičs; Central Bank of Argentina Gov. Guido
Sandleris ; Czech National Bank Gov. Jiří Rusnok; National Bank of
Belgium Gov. Pierre Wunsch.
-- There are no attendees from the Trump administration for the
second straight year, but St. Louis Fed research director
Christopher Waller , whom President Trump has announced as a
forthcoming nominee to the Fed's board, is attending.
-- A couple of industry economists are in attendance, including
Constance Hunter , president of the National Association of
Business Economists, and Diane Swonk , chief economist at Grant
Thornton.
-- Several former Fed officials also are set to join, including
former Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen . Other former Fed officials
include Alan Blinder and Roger Ferguson , who both served as vice
chairman, and former Kansas City Fed President Thomas Hoenig.
-- The list also includes a couple of former and current
government officials, including Phillip Swagel , director of the
Congressional Budget Office, and Jason Furman , former chairman of
the Council of Economic Advisers under former President Obama.
-- And of course, the conference is full of academics, including
Annette Vissing-Jørgensen, Maurice Obstfeld , Yuriy Gorodnichenko
and Barry Eichengreen of the University of California, Berkeley;
Deborah Lucas , Kristin Forbes and Athanasios Orphanides of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Janice Eberly of
Northwestern University; Gauti Eggertsson of Brown University; John
Taylor , Martin Schneider , Monika Piazzesi and Arvind
Krishnamurthy of Stanford University; John Leahy of the University
of Michigan; Eswar Prasad of Cornell University; Carmen Reinhart of
Harvard University; Valerie Ramey of the University of California,
San Diego; Amir Sufi and Chad Syverson of the University of
Chicago; Alan Taylor of the University of California, Davis; and
Johnathan Wright of Johns Hopkins University.
Write to Nick Timiraos at nick.timiraos@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 22, 2019 20:14 ET (00:14 GMT)
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