Susanto Basu is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan. Basu has also been Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics at Harvard University and National Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His most recent articles include “Why Is Productivity Procyclical? Why Do We Care?” (with John G. Fernald), forthcoming in the NBER volume New Directions in Productivity Research, and “Appropriate Technology and Growth” (with David N. Weil), also forthcoming. Basu earned his A.B. and his Ph.D. at Harvard University.

U. Michael Bergman is Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at Lund University in Sweden. He has also been visiting researcher at Copenha-gen Business School, as well as Visiting Professor at Arizona State University and Visiting Scholar at the University of California at Los Angeles. His fields of research are macroeconomics and international finance. Bergman has published several articles on the business cycle, and his forthcoming articles include “Economic Expansions and Fiscal Contractions: International Evidence and the 1982 Danish Stabilization” (with Michael Hutchison). Bergman earned his B.A. in economics and social science and his Ph.D. in economics from Lund University, where his 1992 dissertation topic was “Essays on Economic Fluctuations.”

Mark Bils is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Rochester. He has also held teaching positions at the University of Chicago, the Massachu-setts Institute of Technology, and the University of Rochester. He spent a year as National Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Bils is a Research Associate with the NBER Economic Fluctuations Group, and Associate Editor of the Journal of Monetary Economics. His research interests include cyclical fluctuations in the labor market; cyclical patterns in productivity, pricing, and inventories; human capital and growth; and growth in quality of goods. Bils received his B.A. from Ohio State University and his Ph.D. from M.I.T., both in economics.

Michael D. Bordo is Professor in the Department of Economics at Rutgers University and Director of its Center for Monetary and Financial History. He has held teaching positions at the University of South Carolina and Carleton University in Ottawa, and he has also taught at Carnegie Mellon, Erasmus University in Rotterdam, and Lund University in Sweden. Bordo is on the board of editors of several economic journals and journals of economic history, and he has published widely. His most recent book is The Defining Moment: The Great Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century (with Claudia Goldin and Eugene White). Bordo earned his B.A. in economics and political science at McGill University, his M.Sc. in economics at the London School of Economics, and his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago.

Ricardo J.Caballero is Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has also taught at Columbia University, and he has been Visiting Scholar and Consultant at the International Monetary Fund, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Federal Reserve Board, and the World Bank. Caballero has been awarded a number of grants and fellowships to support his work. Currently he is Associate/Co-Editor of the Journal of Monetary Economics and Associate Editor of Cuadernos de Economia. He has published numerous journal articles, most recently “Aggregate Employment Dynamics: Building from Microeconomics” (with Eric M. Engen and John C. Haltiwanger). Caballero earned his B.S. in economics at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile and his Ph.D. in economics at M.I.T.

Agustin G. Carstens is Director General of the Department of Economic Research at the Central Bank of Mexico. He has been affiliated with the Banco de Mexico for most of his professional career, serving from 1989 to 1993 as Treasurer in charge of the open-market operations unit, the foreign exchange division, and the management of international reserves. He has published a number of articles on privatization, foreign exchange markets, and other macroeconomic issues in Latin America. These include the recent “One Year of Solitude: Some Pilgrim’s Tales about Mexico’s 1994-1995 Crisis,” in The American Economic Review. Carstens earned his B.A. from the Instituto Tecnologico de Mexico and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago.

Lawrence J. Christiano is Professor of Economics at Northwestern Uni-versity and a Consultant to the Federal Reserve Banks of Cleveland and Chicago. He has been a Consultant to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the International Monetary Fund, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. His principal fields of interest include macroeconomics and applied time series analysis. His most recent articles include “Monetary Policy Shocks: What Have We Learned and to What End?” (with Martin Eichenbaum and Charles Evans) and “Habit Persistence and Asset Returns in an Exchange Economy” (with Michele Boldrin and Jonas Fisher). Christiano received his B.A. and M.A. at the University of Minnesota, his M.Sc. in econometrics/mathematical economics at the London School of Economics, and his Ph.D. in economics at Columbia University.

Thomas F. Cooley is Professor of Economics at the University of Rochester and Fred H. Gowen Professor of Economics at Rochester’s Simon School of Business. He is also Director of the Bradley Policy Research Center there. He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and Tufts University. Cooley has published papers in many scholarly journals, and the Princeton University Press recently published his book, Frontiers of Business Cycle Research. He is the coordinating editor of The Review of Economic Dynamics and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Monetary Economics. Cooley earned his B.S. at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, his M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. Cooley also was awarded a Doctorem Honoris Causa by the Stockholm School of Economics.

Richard N. Cooper is Maurits C. Boas Professor of International Economics at Harvard University. He served as Chairman of the National Intelligence Council between 1995 and 1997. He has also been Professor of Economics and Provost at Yale University. Cooper served as Under-Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Monetary Affairs, and Senior Staff Economist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. He was also Chairman of the Board of the Boston Fed. Cooper was an undergraduate at Oberlin College and received an M.Sc. (Econ) from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Harvard. He is a trustee of Oberlin College. Among his numerous publications are the books Can Nations Agree? and Environment and Resource Policies for the World Economy, as well as over three hundred articles.

Steven J. Davis is Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. He is also the President of Chicago Economics and Finance Experts (CEFE), a firm that provides expert assistance to firms engaged in international commerce in North and South America. His past affiliations include positions at the University of Maryland, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and the Hoover Institution. Davis has published in leading academic and policy journals, and his most recent work includes the book Job Creation and Destruction and “Gross Job Flows” for the Handbook of Labor Economics. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Brown University in 1986.

Rudiger Dornbusch is Ford Professor of Economics and International Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has taught since 1975. Dornbusch’s research interests include exchange rate issues, high inflation, and currency crises, as well as stabilization policy. He has written many books, including most recently Financial Opening: Policy Lessons for Korea (edited with Yung Chul Park) and Reform, Recovery and Growth (edited with Sebastian Edwards). Dornbusch has written extensively for economic journals and is also a contributor to BusinessWeek. He earned his Licence es Sciences Politiques at the University of Geneva, and his Ph.D. in economics at the University of Chicago.

Benjamin M. Friedman is the William Joseph Maier Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University. Before joining the Harvard faculty in 1972, he worked with Morgan Stanley & Co., investment bankers. He has also worked in consulting or other capacities with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Reserve Banks of New York and Boston. Friedman’s best known book is Day of Reckoning: The Consequences of American Economic Policy Under Reagan and After, which received the George S. Eccles Prize, awarded annually by Columbia University for excellence in writing about economics. He has published several other books and is the author of many journal articles on monetary economics, macroeconomics, and monetary and fiscal policy. Friedman received his A.B., A.M., and Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. He received an M.Sc. in economics and politics from King’s College, Cambridge, where he was a Marshall Scholar.

Jeffrey C. Fuhrer is Vice President and Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. He is a graduate of Princeton and earned his Ph.D. at Harvard. He began his career at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, where he was a Senior Economist, and moved to the Boston Fed in 1992. Fuhrer is the author of numerous journal articles on monetary policy, interest rates, and inflation. His most recent articles include “Monetary Policy When Interest Rates Are Bounded at Zero” (with Brian Madigan) and “Towards a Compact, Empiri-cally Verified Rational Expectations Model for Monetary Policy Analysis.”

Lars Jonung is a Professor at the Stockholm School of Economics. His research is focused on stabilization policies, monetary history, and the history of Swedish economic thought. He was Economic Advisor to the Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken from 1989 through 1991 and Chief Economic Advisor to Prime Minister Carl Bildt from 1992 to 1994. He has published several books, including The Political Economy of Price Controls: The Swedish Experience 1970-1985. Jonung has also edited several volumes in The Stockholm School of Economics Revisited.

Henry Kaufman is President of Henry Kaufman & Company, Inc., a firm specializing in investment management and economic and financial consulting. Earlier he was a Managing Director with Salomon Brothers Inc., where he was in charge of the four research departments. In 1987 Kaufman was awarded the first George S. Eccles Prize for his book Interest Rates, the Markets, and the New Financial World. He is Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Institute of International Education; Chairman of the Board of Overseers, Stern School of Business, New York University; and a member of the International Capital Markets Advisory Committee of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Kaufman received his B.A. from New York University, an M.S. in finance from Columbia University, and his Ph.D. from N.Y.U.’s Graduate School of Business Administration. He also holds honorary degrees from N.Y.U. and Yeshiva University.

Cathy E. Minehan is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. As one of the nation's central bankers, she contributes to policy decisions that promote the safety and soundness of the U.S. financial system and the health of the nation's economy. She is an expert in payment systems, a major Fed responsibility. She also focuses her energies on areas of structural economic development within New England, including community development, public education, and training. She serves on the boards of many civic, professional, and educational organizations, including the Boston Private Industry Council, Jobs for Massachusetts, United Way, the University of Rochester, and Bentley College. Minehan began her career with the Federal Reserve System following graduation from the University of Rochester. She received an M.B.A. from New York University and holds several honorary degrees.

Michael Mussa is the Economic Counsellor and Director of the Department of Research at the International Monetary Fund, a position he has held since 1991. He is responsible for advising the Management and Executive Board of the Fund on broad issues of economic policy, and he supervises the activities of the Research Department. Before joining the IMF, Mussa was a long-time member of the faculty at the Graduate School of Business of the University of Chicago, where he held the William H. Abbott Professorship of International Business. From 1971 to 1976, he served on the faculty of the Department of Economics at the University of Rochester; during this period he also served as a visiting faculty member at the City University of New York, the London School of Economics, and the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. Mussa was a member of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers from 1986 to 1988.

Maurice Obstfeld is the Class of 1958 Professor of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley. His interests are in international finance and macroeconomics, areas in which he has published a number of research articles. He received his Ph.D. from M.I.T., later teaching at Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard before moving to Berkeley. Obstfeld has served as a consultant for the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the European Commission, and several central banks. His most recent book, coauthored with Kenneth Rogoff, is Foundations of International Macroeconomics. He is also coauthor (with Paul Krugman) of International Economics: Theory and Policy, which has been translated into seven languages. Obstfeld is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, and a Fellow of the Econometric Society.

Avinash Persaud is Global Head of Currency & Commodity Research at J.P. Morgan, where he is responsible for currency recommendations to clients and to in-house traders. Persaud is also a member of the Global Management Committee of Morgan’s FX & Commodity Division. He was formerly a Director of Currency Research at the Union Bank of Switzerland. Persaud is the originator of a number of prize-winning analytical tools, including the J. P. Morgan Global Risk Appetite Index, which received an Amex Bank Award for International Economics in 1994. His latest tool, “The Event Risk Indicator,” is web-based and real-time, designed to warn investors of a coming currency crash. He is a graduate in International Economics of the London School of Economics.

Christina D. Romer is the Class of 1957 — Garff B. Wilson Professor of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley, where she has taught since 1988. Before that, she taught at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. Romer is currently a Research Associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research. She also serves on the research advisory board for the Committee for Economic Development and the editorial board of The Review of Economics and Statistics. She recently coedited (with David H. Romer) the book Reducing Inflation: Motivation and Strategy. Romer has written extensively on the business cycle and has a forthcoming article in the Journal of Economic History, “Why Did Prices Rise in the 1930s?” Romer earned her B.A. at the College of William and Mary and her Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both in economics.

Paul A. Samuelson is Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was awarded the Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science in 1970 and has received more than thirty honorary degrees from universities in the United States and abroad. Samuelson was an undergrad-uate at the University of Chicago and earned his M.A. and Ph.D. at Harvard University. His textbook Economics has sold more than three million copies and has been published in over twenty languages. Volumes 6 and 7 of his collected papers are now in preparation. Samuelson has served as consultant or advisor to the U.S. Treasury, the Council of Economic Advisers, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and the Congressional Budget Office, as well as many other public and research organizations.

Scott Schuh is an Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Previously, he was an economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and he has also taught at Johns Hopkins University. Schuh does research on labor markets, investment, and monetary policy, with an emphasis on under-standing the macroeconomic implications of microeconomic heterogeneity. His recent publications include the book Job Creation and Destruction and the chapter “Small Business and Job Creation: Dissecting the Myth and Reassessing the Facts” in the book Labor Markets, Employment Policy, and Job Creation (both with Steven J. Davis and John Haltiwanger). Schuh received his B.A. from California State University, Sacramento, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University.

Christopher A. Sims is Henry Ford II Professor of Economics at Yale University and a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He has taught at Harvard University, the University of Minnesota, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Sims’s areas of research interest include econo-metric theory for dynamic models and macroeconomic theory and policy. He is currently a member of the Editorial Board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Associate Editor for Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, and Senior Advisor to the Brookings Panel on Economic Activity. He has published widely; his most recent article (with Tao Zha) is “Bayesian Methods for Dynamic Multivariate Models.” Sims earned his B.A. in mathematics at Harvard College, did graduate work at the University of California at Berkeley, and received his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.

Peter Temin is Elisha Gray II Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has held the positions of Department Head, Professor of Economics, and Associate Professor of Economic History in the Economics Department. He spent a year as Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions, University of Cambridge, and he has also been Assistant Professor of Industrial History at M.I.T.’s Sloan School of Management. Temin is the author of many books, including the forthcoming Learning by Doing in Markets, Firms, and Nations (with Naomi R. Lamoreaux and Daniel M. G. Raff). His earlier books include Lessons from the Great Depression and Did Monetary Forces Cause the Great Depression? He has also written many articles for economic journals. Temin earned his B.A. at Swarthmore College and his Ph.D. at M.I.T., both in economics.

Robert K. Triest is an Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. He has taught at Johns Hopkins University and at the University of California at Davis, where he was an Associate Professor. His research has focused primarily on public finance and labor economics. Recent publications include “Has Poverty Gotten Worse?” in the Journal of Economic Perspectives; the book Social Security Reform: Links to Saving, Investment, and Growth (coedited with Steven Sass); and “Regional Differences in Family Poverty,” in the New England Economic Review. Triest received his B.A. from Vassar College and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Martin B. Zimmerman is Chief Economist and Executive Director for governmental relations and corporate economics for Ford Motor Company. Before joining Ford, he was a Professor and Chairman of the Business Economics Department at the University of Michigan’s Graduate School of Business Admin-istration. He also taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In September 1985 Zimmerman interrupted his assignment at the University of Michigan to serve for a year as a Senior Economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. He also served on the Advisory Council of the National Aeronautic and Space Administration. He has written many articles, including “Market Incentives for the Safe Operation of Commercial Aviation,” (with Severin Borenstein), and “Regulatory Treatment of Abandoned Property: Incen-tive Effects and Policy Issues.” Zimmerman earned his B.A. from Dartmouth College and his Ph.D. in economics from M.I.T.