----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- Brad Bateman wrote: "I have felt for many years that we need a version of Peter Hall's (edited) collection, _The Political Power of Economic Ideas: Keynesianism Across Nations_, which is (for the most part) a set of country case studies of how demand management was (was not) adopted in several industrialized nations. This is why I had suggested an "international" group; I was thinking of a study of when and why monetarism had been adopted in different countries and when why it was abandoned in its formulation as a theory of macro-policy by monetary aggregate targeting ... I do think that it might be easier to get funding for a study group focused on your number four. And the high quality of the Hall volume is due, in part, to the fact that they had the funding to bring all the contributors together more than once to refine and focus the papers (and to invite additional contributions as their value became more clear, if I remember correctly)." Brad's comments are spot on (my other three items are not so much in need of conference funding). There are economists within the Reserve Bank of Australia (including the Governor), the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England and the Richmond Federal Reserve who have an interest in the interaction between academic ideas and the policy market place. Why don't we establish a Steering Committee with a proposed conference and a planned conference volume? We could then suggest that these banks (plus others) might like to jointly fund the conference. Milton Friedman opened the 2000 Bank of Canada conference on the float of the Canadian dollar by video, and he would I imagine be willing to do the same for this conference. Two nominations for this Steering Committee jump immediately to mind. Robert Leeson Murdoch University ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]