Twenty-second Annual Conference on Macroeconomics.

• Position: Conferences

The NBER's twenty-second Annual Conference on Macroeconomics, organized by NBER Research Associates Daron Acemoglu, MIT, Kenneth Rogoff, Harvard University, and Michael Woodford, Columbia University, took place in Cambridge on March 30 and 31. The program was:

Charles Engel and Kenneth D. West, University of Wisconsin and NBER, and Nelson C. Mark, University of Notre Dame and NBER, "Exchange Rate Models Are Not As Bad As You Think"

Discussants: Kenneth Rogoff, and Barbara Rossi, Duke University

Kiminori Matsuyama, Northwestern University, "Aggregate Implications of Credit Market Imperfections"

Discussants: Mark Gertler, New York University and NBER, and Nobuhiro Kiyotaki, Princeton University and NBER

Philippe Aghion, Harvard University and NBER, and Ioana Marinescu, University of Chicago, "Cyclical Budgetary Policy and Economic Growth: What Do We Learn from OECD Panel Data?"

Discussants: Ricardo J. Caballero, MIT and NBER, and Anil K Kashyap, University of Chicago and NBER

Roberto Perotti, Universita Bocconi and NBER, "In Search of the Transmission Mechanism of Fiscal Policy"

Discussants: Ricardo Reis, Princeton University and NBER, and Valerie Ramey, University of California, San Diego and NBER

Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde, Duke University and NBER, and Juan Rubio-Ramirez, Duke University, "How Structural Are Structural Parameters?"

Discussants: Timothy Cogley, University of California, Davis, and Frank Schorfheide, University of Pennsylvania and NBER

Florin Bilbiie, University of Oxford; Fabio Ghironi, Boston College and NBER; and Mare Melitz, Princeton University and NBER, "Monetary Policy and Business Cycles with Endogenous Entry and Product Variety"

Discussants: Virgiliu Midrigan, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, and Julio Rotemberg, Harvard University and NBER

Standard models of exchange rates, based on macroeconomic variables such as prices, interest rates, output, and the like, are thought by many researchers to have failed empirically. Engel, West, and Mark present evidence to the contrary. First, they emphasize the point that "beating a random walk" in forecasting is too strong a criterion for accepting an exchange rate model. Typically, models should have low forecasting power of this type. They then propose a number of alternative ways to evaluate models. They examine in-sample fit, but emphasize the importance of the monetary policy rule, and its effects on expectations, in determining exchange rates. Next they present...