Bill White made the keynote presentation at the end of a 19 November conference on macroprudential policies, organized jointly by the IMF, the Danish National Bank and CBS in Copenhagen. Although many commentators seem to feel that such policies will ensure financial stability in the future, Bill noted that policymakers face many difficulties in conducting them properly. Indeed, they might even contribute to financial instability by encouraging the pursuit of “lower for longer” monetary policy with its many unintended consequences.

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On 16 November, Bill made a presentation at  a.meeting organized by the Swiss Progress Foundation in Zurich. Hans Werner Sinn also made a presentation.

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Bill presented his comments on a panel at the end of a meeting (August 30-31) in Reykjavik, Iceland, which looked at “The 2008 Global Financial Crisis in Retrospect”. He agreed that much progress has been made in regulating the financial sector, but also drew attention to many remaining shortcomings. The fact that all piecemeal regulatory changes invite evasion, and then still another regulatory response, raises questions as to whether still more radical change to our current financial and monetary system is not required.

The OECD, NAEC and partners for a New Economy, held a meeting in Paris on 13-14 September 2018 directed to this question. Bill White was a panel member commenting on a presentation by Maurice Obstfeld, Chief Economist of the IMF. Given that the panel was at the end of the proceedings, Bill gave his answer to the question, conditioned by what he had heard during the conference. He concluded that we had not learned much, since thepolicies followed post crisis were “more of the same” policies folowed pre-crisis. To achieve a true paradigm shift will require economists embacing the idea that the economy is not a machine, but  a complex, adaptive system like many others in nature and society.