Paper submissions that adopt novel methodological approaches for addressing these and related macroeconomic questions are encouraged. Specific examples of relevant topics include:

• factors accounting for very low global real interest rates;
• whether central banks have adequate scope to ease policy in a recession, or whether a substantial shift in the monetary policy framework, such as a higher inflation target, is needed;
• the puzzlingly weak response of inflation and wage growth to resource slack in many countries, suggesting a possible breakdown of the Phillips Curve;
• the causes of the slowdown in productivity growth in industrial countries, and implications for economic growth, monetary policy and fiscal sustainability;
• international spillovers from prospective normalisation in some industrial economies, including through exchange rates and capital flows;
• the role of monetary policy in containing financial stability risks;
• model uncertainty, information frictions or heterogeneous agents/beliefs.

Conference papers will be placed on a website; there will be no conference volume. Although this call is being circulated fairly widely, further circulation is encouraged, especially to younger economists.
Complete manuscripts (not just abstracts) should be submitted electronically in PDF format to  irfmp2018@frb.gov by 15 November 2017. Authors of accepted papers will be notified by 15 December 2017.
Travel expenses of presenting authors will be reimbursed (though participants from central banks and other official institutions will be expected to cover their own expenses).