New Issues in Monetary Policy: International Experience and Relevance for China
Second Joint Conference of People's Bank of China and IMF
Location: Ritz Carlton Financial District, Beijing
March 27, 2014
The joint conference will discuss new issues in monetary policy in an international context and assess their relevance for China. Against the backdrop of the global financial crisis and the use of unconventional monetary policy, it will look at the implications for monetary policy frameworks, as well as the changing toolkit of central banks. As China transitions toward an increasingly open and complex financial system, the conference will also review the experience of other major economies as they moved toward interest rate-based tools and how they addressed rapidly changing financial landscapes. The conference will bring together international experts, Chinese academics, PBC and IMF staff.
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Wednesday, March 26, 2014 |
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| 18:30 -20:00 | Dinner Reception hosted by IMF Location: Temple of Heaven I, Ritz Carlton Financial District |
Thursday, March 27, 2014 |
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9:00 - 9:15 |
Opening Remarks Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor, People's Bank of China |
9:15 - 10:45 |
Session I: Evolving Monetary Policy Frameworks after the Global Financial Crisis Conventional wisdom about optimal policy frameworks has been challenged. Although inflation targeting delivered low and stable inflation in many advanced economies and emerging markets prior to the global crises, there is a debate about optimal monetary policy frameworks that go beyond narrowly defined inflation targets of the past, including taking into consideration growth, unemployment and financial stability. This session will discuss the latest views on optimal monetary policy frameworks and their implications for China. Moderator: He Jianxiong, Director General, International Department, People’s Bank of China Speakers: Li Bo, Director General, Monetary Policy Department II, People's Bank of China John Murray, Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Canada Philipp Hartmann, Acting Director General, Research Department,European Central Bank Tsutomu Watanabe, Professor of Economics, University of Tokyo |
10:45 - 11:00 |
Coffee Break |
11:00-12:30 |
Session II: Changing Toolkit of Central Banks This session will review the changing and expanding toolkit of central banks, including forward guidance, balance sheet operation, capital flow management, and macro-prudential policies. Moderator: Zhou Hao, Professor of China Economics, PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University Speakers: Sun Guofeng, Deputy Director General, Monetary Policy Department, People’s Bank of China Arminio Fraga, Gavea Investment and former Central Bank Governor, Brazil Andrew Levin, Research Fellow, Research Department, IMF and former Federal Reserve Special Advisor Wang Tao, Head of China Economic Research, UBS, Hong Kong |
12:30-14:00 |
Lunch Keynote speaker: Marek Belka, President, National Bank of Poland |
14:00-15:30 |
Session III: Rapidly Changing Financial Systems: Challenges for the Coordination of Financial Sector and Monetary Policy Rapidly changing financial systems, financial innovations, and the surge of non-bank/shadow banking activities, go hand-in-hand with strong economic growth and structural transformation. While this is beneficial, it presents challenges both for financial sector regulation and supervision and the conduct of monetary policy. This session will look at the international experience of how best to approach a rapidly changing financial sector landscape and how best to coordinate macro prudential and monetary policy. Moderator: Heinz Herrmann, Head of Research, Deutsche Bundesbank Speakers: Ji Zhihong, Director General, Financial Market Department, People’s Bank of China Leonardo Leiderman, Professor of Economics, Berglas School of Economics, Tel-Aviv University Nellie Liang, Director, Federal Reserve Board's Office of Financial Stability Policy & ResearchAna Maria Aguilar, Director of Research, Central Bank of Mexico |
15:30-15:45 |
Coffee Break |
15:45-17:15 |
Session IV: Experiences in Moving Toward Market Based Policy Instruments As countries move from quantitative targets to price based monetary policy tools, they have to determine the appropriate anchor, instruments and operational targets. This session will look at how countries managed the transition and the lessons and implications for China. Moderator: Alfred Schipke, Senior Resident Representative, IMF Speakers: Woon Gyu Choi, Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Korea Sukhdave Singh, Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Malaysia Ma Jun, Chief Economist, Deutsche Bank, Hong Kong Heinz Herrmann, Head of Research, Deutsche Bundesbank Zhou Hao, Professor of Economics, PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University |
17:15-18:00 |
Session V: Concluding Roundtable The panel discussion will draw on the main conclusions from the day's discussion. Panel members will summarize their main takeaways with a focus on lessons that may be relevant for China's next steps. Moderator: He Dong,, Executive Director, Hong Kong Monetary Authority Panelists: Yi Gang, Deputy Governor, People's Bank of China Marek Belka, President, National Bank of Poland Arminio Fraga, Gavea Investment and former Governor, Central Bank of Brazil Stephen Green, Head Research China, Standard Chartered |
18:00-18:15 |
Closing Remarks Markus Rodlauer, Deputy Director, Asia and Pacific Department, IMF |
18:30-20:00 |
Dinner Reception Hosted by Yi Gang, Deputy Governor, People's Bank of China Location: Minzu Hotel, Yi Pin Restaurant, 2/F, Room Shan Si Xuan |
Dr. Zhou was born in January 1948 at Beijing, People’s Republic of China. He graduated with a B.E. degree from Beijing Institute of Chemical Technology in 1975 and received a Ph.D. in Economic Systems Engineering from Tsinghua University in 1985.
Mr. He has worked in the PBC since 1991, first as Deputy Division Chief, then as Division Chief, Deputy Director-General, and Director-General in the International Department. During this period, Mr. He has held a few positions in the IMF, as Advisor to Executive Director in 1995-1997, Alternate Executive Director for China in 2006-2009 and Executive Director for China from May 2009 to November 2011.
Mr. Li joined the PBOC in 2004, working in the Legal and Regulation Department before joining the Monetary Policy Department II in 2009. Prior to joining the PBOC, Mr Li was a practicing attorney with the New York law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell. Mr. Li holds a Ph.D. degree in economics from Stanford University and a J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. He is a member of the Chinese and New York Bar.
John Murray was appointed Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada in January 2008. In this capacity, he is one of two deputy governors responsible for overseeing the Bank's analysis of domestic and international economic developments in support of monetary policy decisions. As a member of the Bank's Governing Council, he shares responsibility for decisions with respect to monetary policy and financial system stability, and for setting the strategic direction of the Bank.
Philipp Hartmann is the Deputy Director General and the Acting Head of the research department at the European Central Bank (ECB). He is also a Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research and a chaired part-time professor of macro-financial economics at Erasmus University Rotterdam. His previous positions include that of Vice President of SUERF, member of the Basel Committee Research Task Force, Head of the Financial Research Division at the ECB and Research Fellow for Financial Regulation at the London School of Economics.
Tsutomu Watanabe is Professor of Economics at the Graduate School of Economics, University of Tokyo, where he has been teaching macroeconomics, monetary economics, and international finance since October 2011. Before that, he was Professor at the Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University in 1999-2011, and Senior Economist at the Bank of Japan in 1982-1999. He has also held visiting professor positions at various universities, including Kyoto University and Bocconi University. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1992, and did his undergraduate work at the University of Tokyo. Watanabe’s main research area is monetary policy and inflation dynamics. He is known for his series of papers on monetary policy when nominal interest rates are bounded at zero; in particularly, his paper on the optimal monetary policy at the zero lower bound, whose first draft appeared in 2001 and final version was published in 2005, has been widely recognized as the first paper to provide a simple description of the liquidity trap and characterize the optimal policy response to it in a setting of dynamic stochastic general equilibrium. He is an author of many books and more than 40 academic journal articles on monetary policy and international finance. He is Project Leader of JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research projects on “Understanding Persistent Deflation in Japan” (2012-2017).
ZHOU Hao is currently a professor at PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University. Before March 2013, he was a senior economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Hao’s prior official duty involved supervising systemically important financial institution and advising the Board of Governors on macroprudential regulation policy. Hao was visiting professors at MIT and Peking University. He joined the Federal Reserve after receiving a PhD degree in economics from Duke University in 2000 and also held BA and MA degrees in economics from Peking University.
SUN Guofeng, Deputy Director General, Monetary Policy Department, the People’s Bank of China. Sun Guogeng graduated from the Graduate School of the People's Bank of China in 1996, before joining PBC’s Planning and Central Bank Lending Department in the same year. He then worked in the Bank’s Monetary Policy Department, where he served as Deputy Director of Open Market Operations and subsequently Director of Foreign Exchange Transactions. Mr. Sun has held the office of Deputy Director General of the Monetary Policy Department since 2010, primarily engaged in the establishment of the inter-bank bond market, the development of China's money market, the launching of open market operations, and the reform of the RMB exchange rate regime. During 2003-2004, he was invited to do research as a visiting scholar at Stanford University. Mr. Sun is currently a parttime professor at the University of International Business and Economics of China and a distinguished member of the China Finance 40 forum. Sun Guofeng has for many years studied topics such as credit money theory, central bank monetary policy, RMB exchange rate, the bond market, the money market and international financial markets. He is the author of more than 60 papers and 2 books, and has been a guest speaker at various colleges and research institutions including Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, the Bank for International Settlements, China Center for Economic Research at Peking University, and China Society for Finance and Banking.
Arminio Fraga is the founding partner at Gavea Investimentos, an investment management firm he founded in August, 2003, based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Mr. Fraga was the Chairman of the Board, BM&FBovespa, Brazil’s securities, commodities and derivatives exchange, from April 2009 to April 2013, and was the President of the Central Bank of Brazil from March 1999 to December 2002. From 1993 until his appointment as governor of the Central Bank, he was managing director of Soros Fund Management in New York. From 1991 to 1992, he was the director responsible for international affairs at the Central Bank of Brazil. Earlier in his career, he held positions with Salomon Brothers and Garantia Investment Bank. Mr. Fraga has taught at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, the Graduate School of Economics at Getulio Vargas Foundation, the School of International Affairs at Columbia University and the Wharton School. He is a member of the Group of Thirty and of the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves on the boards of several NGOs. Mr. Fraga has published widely in the areas of international finance, macroeconomics, and monetary policy. Mr. Fraga earned his Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University in 1985, and his BA/MA in Economics from the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, in 1981.
Andrew Levin is currently a resident scholar in the research department at the International Monetary Fund. Dr. Levin received his Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University in 1989. He was a staff member at the U.S. Federal Reserve Board from 1992 to 2012, most recently serving for two years as a special adviser to Chairman Bernanke and Vice Chair Yellen on monetary policy strategy and communications. Dr. Levin has also had extensive interactions with many other central banks: He served as a consultant to the European Central Bank’s inflation persistence network and to the Bank of Canada’s external review of research, was a co-editor of the International Journal of Central Banking, has been a visiting scholar at the Bank of Japan and the Dutch National Bank, and has provided technical assistance to the national banks of Albania and Macedonia. Mr. Levin’s own research has been published in leading economic journals, including the American Economic Review, the Journal of the European Economic Association, the Journal of Monetary Economics, and the Journal of Econometrics.
Dr. Tao Wang is a managing director and the Head of China Economic Research at UBS investment bank. She leads a team that covers China’s macroeconomic and policy issues. Prior to joining the company, Dr. Wang was Head of Greater China Economics and Strategy at Bank of America and Head of Asian Economics at BP plc.
Born in January 1952 in Łódź (central Poland), Marek Belka graduated from the University of Łódź with a Master’s Degree in Economics in 1972, continued his academic career at the Institute of Economics of his alma mater. He received his Ph. D. in 1978, which was followed by a postdoctoral degree in economics (“habilitation”) in 1986. Associated with the Polish Academy of Sciences since 1986, Marek Belka was a research fellow at the Columbia and Chicago Universities (1978-79, 1985-86) and at the London School of Economics (1990). He received the title of Professor of Economics in 1994. 
Heinz Herrmann is the head of research of the Deutsche Bundesbank. He received his PhD in 1978. From 1978 until 1980 he worked in the staff of the German Council of Economic Advisors and joined the Deutsche Bundesbank as an economist in 1980. He served as deputy head of the monetary analysis division and as head of a unit for preparation of the EMU before he became head of the Bundesbank research centre in 2000. He is also a member of the German Data Forum.
Dr. Ji Zhihong is Director General of the Financial Market Department and Research Bureau, the People’s Bank of China (PBC). He also serves as Secretary-General of China Society for Finance and Banking and Chief Editor of the Journal of Financial Research. Prior to his appointment to the Research Bureau, Dr. Ji served in the Monetary Policy Department and Shanghai head Office of the PBC since 1995.
Leonardo Leiderman is Professor of Economics in Tel Aviv University. Born in Cordoba, Argentina in 1951, migrated to Israel in 1969 and started BA studies at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Completed MA studies in 1974 and then moved to the University of Chicago, USA, for Economics Doctorate degree which was obtained in 1978. Then took a teaching and research position at Tel Aviv University up until now. Over the years, visited in numerous occasions the IMF, World Bank, University of Chicago and other institutions. Held top positions at Deutsche Bank and the Bank of Israel. Published more than 70 articles in professional journals and authored or edited 7 books. Main areas of research are macroeconomics, monetary policy, emerging markets, international finance.
Nellie Liang is the Director of the Office of Financial Stability Policy and Research (OFS) at the Federal Reserve Board. OFS is responsible for conducting and coordinating work at the Board relating to analyzing emerging and structural financial risks to financial stability and evaluating alternative policies to mitigate systemic risks. Ms. Liang’s recent research has focused on short-term funding markets, debt covenants on employment risk, corporate payout policies, defined contribution pension plans, and company stock. Her research has been published in Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and Journal of Public Economics, among other places. She received her PhD in economics from the University of Maryland.
Since 2004 Ana María Aguilar holds a PhD in Economics by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and has worked in Banco de México since 1998. In the Central Bank Dr. Aguilar worked as an economic researcher, and later was in charge of the Monetary Research Division. Presently, she is the Head of the Directorate of Economic Studies. On the one hand, Dr. Aguilar is in charge of the analysis of the monetary policy, particularly the economic factors including the performance of financial markets, affecting the evolution of inflation and its expectations. On the other hand, she is in charge of the relation between the Directorate General of Economic Research and the national and international academic sector. Additionally, she provides support to the authorities of the Central Bank in making monetary policy decisions and other relevant topics of the economic policy, as well as in informing the general public of the referred decisions.
Alfred Schipke is the IMF Senior Resident Representative for China. Previously, he was a division chief in the Asia and Pacific Department, where he coordinated the work on fast growing low income countries in South-East Asia (Frontier Economies) and led missions to Vietnam. He was a division chief in the IMF’s Western Hemisphere Department in charge of the Latin Caribbean and Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) divisions. Among others, he negotiated a high access Stand-by Arrangement, which included a debt restructuring and a debt-equity swap for one of the countries in the ECCU, as well as an $800 million precautionary Stand-By Arrangement for El Salvador. Also, he was the Regional Resident Representative for Central America, Panama, and the Dominican Republic and worked in the IMF European Department. He teaches international trade and finance at Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government and has authored and edited a number of books and articles, including a recently published handbook on the ECCU. His research has focused on economic integration and the linkages between macroeconomics and finance. 
Mr. Woon Gyu Choi is currently a Deputy Governor and the Director General of the Economic Research Institute at the Bank of Korea (BOK). Before joining the BOK in June 2012, he worked at the IMF (the Asian Division of the IMF Institute, 2000–2012). At the IMF Institute, he taught various courses in macroeconomics, international finance, finance, and related policy issues to government officials worldwide. He led and/or coordinated various IMF courses including financial programming and policies, macroeconomic diagnostics, economic policies for financial stability, financial market analysis, macroeconomic management and financial sector issues/fiscal policy, and monetary and exchange rate policy. Prior to joining the Fund, he worked at the Research Department of the BOK (1987–1991), and taught all levels of courses including money & banking and advanced macroeconomics as an assistant professor at the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (1995–2000). His research interests include monetary policy and financial markets, aggregate and corporate money demand, exchange rate policy and fiscal policy issues, international reserves, financial cycles, macroeconomic policies and unemployment, and global financial market issues. He has publications in leading academic journals including Journal of Monetary Economics, Journal of International Economics, Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, and Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. He obtained his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Sukudhew (Sukhdave) Singh is Deputy Governor at Bank Negara Malaysia, with responsibility over Monetary Policy, Economics, International, Statistics, IT, Risk Management and Human Capital Development. He is also a member of Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee, Financial Stability Committee and Board of Directors.
Jun MA is Managing Director, Chief Economist for Greater China, and Head of China/Hong Kong Strategy with Deutsche Bank. Prior to joining Deutsche Bank in 2000, Jun worked as economist and senior economist at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank from 1992-2000. From 1988-1990, Jun was an Economic Research Fellow at the Development Research Center of China's State Council. Jun has published eight books and several hundred articles on the Chinese economy, global economy, and financial markets. Jun was frequently invited by government agencies for policy discussion. His main research interests include macroeconomic forecasting, monetary and exchange rate policy, RMB internationalization and capital account liberalization, financial market development, and structural reforms. 
HE Dong is Executive Director (Research) at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), responsible for managing the Research Department and for directing research and policy advice on issues relating to the maintenance of macroeconomic and financial stability, and the development of financial markets. He is also Director of the Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research, responsible for leading the Institute’s research activities.
Dr. YI Gang, is the administrator of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange and a deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China.
Stephen Green is Head of Greater China research at Standard Chartered Bank. His team is based in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taipei. Stephen has a Ph.D. from the Department of Government, London School of Economics and Political Science and a first class Honours degree from Cambridge University. He has been a visiting researcher at Fudan University in Shanghai and at the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.
Markus Rodlauer is Deputy Director of the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department. He was head of the team that prepared the 2012 Article IV Consultation for the People’s Republic of China. His previous operational responsibilities include being Deputy Director in the Western Hemisphere Department, Assistant Director in the Asian Department, and IMF Representative to Poland and the Philippines. Dr. Rodlauer worked with the Ministry of Foreign Affair of Austria before joining the IMF. His academic training includes various degrees in economics and international relations and a Doctor of Law from the University of Innsbruck.