Japan conference.

• Position: Conferences

The NBER, Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), Center for International Reseach on the Japanese Economy (CIRJE), and European Institute of Japanese Studies (EIJS) jointly organized a conference on the Japanese economy in Tokyo on September 19-20. The co-chairs of the meeting were: Magnus Blomstrom, NBER and Stockholm School of Economics; Jennifer Corbett, Australian National Union; Fumio Hayashi, NBER and the University of Tokyo; Anil K Kashyap, NBER and the Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago; and David Weinstein, NBER and Columbia University. The

Alan J. Auerbach and Maurice Obstfeld, NBER and University of California, Berkeley, "The Case for Open-Market Purchases in a Liquidity Trap"

Discussant: Susanto Basu, NBER and University of Michigan

Gunter Coenen and Volker Wieland European Central Bank, "The Zero-Interest-Rate Bound and the Role of the Exchange Rate for Monetary Policy in Japan"

Discussant:. David Gruen, Australian Department of the Treasury

1. Serdar Dinc, University of Michigan, and Patrick M. McGuire, Bank for International Settlements, "Did Investors Regard Real Estate as 'Safe' during the Japanese Bubble' in the 1980s?"

Discussant: Kenneth J. Singleton, NBER and Stanford University

Ricardo J. Caballero, NBER and MIT; Takeo Hoshi, NBER and University of California, San Diego; and Anil K Kashyap, "Zombie Lending and Depressed Restructuring in Japan"

Discussant: Chang-Tai Hsieh, NBER and Princeton University

Robert Dekle, University of Southern California, and Kenneth Kletzer, University of California, Santa Cruz, "The Japanese Banking Crisis and Economic Growth: Theoretical and Empirical Implications of Deposit Guarantees and Weak Financial Regulation"

Discussant: David Smith, Federal Reserve Board

Tetsuji Okazaki University of Tokyo, and Michiru Sawada, Hitotsubashi University, "Bank Merger Movement and Evolution of Financial System: Experiences in Prewar Japan"

Discussant: Takeo Hoshi

Yoshiro Miwa, University of Tokyo, and J. Mark Ramseyer, Harvard University, "Who Appoints Them, What Do They Do? Evidence on Outside Directors from Japan"

Discussant: Randall Morck, NBER and University of Alberta

Gauti Eggertsson, International Monetary Fund, and Michael Woodford, NBER and Princeton University, "Optimal Monetary Policy in a Liquidity Trap"

Discussant: Kazuo Ueda, Bank of Japan

The prevalent thinking about liquidity traps suggests that the perfect substitutability of money and bonds at a zero short-term...