Looking past the turbulent 1970s and early 1980s, much of the moderation in the economy reflects a decline in high frequency (short-term) fluctuations.

New data show that health spending over the past several years has been normalizing toward the rate of general inflation, rather than growing higher and higher, as had been the case almost continuously since the 1970s.

Can the current post-Bretton Woods international monetary system prevent a return to the beggar-thy-neighbor policies and competitive devaluations that so harmed international prosperity in the 1930s? What are the system's flaws? Can they be corrected, and if so, how? An expert panel will address these and related issues.

To make financial markets less vulnerable to their inevitable cycles, it is an essential responsibility of both private financial actors and government officials to study, develop and implement countercyclical approaches.

The lesson of the financial crisis is not that we should stop thinking about the future, but that we should give up the faith that wise central bankers and learned economists can make the financial world safe. They can't.

If financial stability was at the top of the central banks' agenda by 1999, one can reasonably wonder what they were doing about it from 1999 to 2007.

Two rounds of fiscal stimulus have produced neither a sustained rise in growth nor a sustained drop in the unemployment rate. Another round would merely increase deficits and debt levels.

The Federal Reserve is prone to major and minor mistakes because it is affected by political pressure.