Foreign exchange rate conference set Sept. 28-29

Leading researchers, economists and policymakers from major universities will participate in a landmark foreign exchange rate conference at UW–Madison Sept. 28-29.

The invitation-only conference comes at an important moment in world financial markets. The movements in exchange rates in the 1990s have had profound effects on economies throughout the world. The crisis surrounding depreciation of currencies in several Asian countries in 1997, the recent collapse of the Turkish lira, a feared devaluation of Argentina’s peso (which is pegged to the U.S. dollar), and the movements of the Mexican peso and Canadian dollar relative to the dollar have led to significant economic dislocation.

“It is critical that we gain a better understanding of exchange-rate behavior as globalization proceeds,” says economics professor Donald Nichols, a senior fellow with the UW–Madison Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy, which is sponsoring the conference.

The relationship between interest rates, stock prices and exchange rates is often the focus of weekly briefings International Finance Division staff give Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, Nichols says.

Exchange rate forecasts are also an important element of staff analysis of U.S. inflation and GDP, as well as the subject of considerable discussion at meetings of international organizations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and Bank for International Settlements, Nichols says.

Participants include Richard Meese and Kenneth Rogoff, authors of an influential 1983 article on foreign exchange rates in the Journal of International Economics. The article significantly altered the economics profession’s understanding of the behavior of exchange rates. Meese is now head of international research at Barclay’s Global Investors in San Francisco. Rogoff is director of research and economic counselor at the International Monetary Fund. He is on leave from the Department of Economics at Harvard University.

Other conference participants include representatives from the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, the Bank of Canada, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

In addition to WAGE, conference sponsors include the UW–Madison School of Business and its Center for International Business Education and Research, the Clausen Center for International Business and Policy at the University of California-Berkeley, and the Federal Reserve Board.

For information, contact Cynthia Williams, (608) 262-3929, cwilliam@facstaff.wisc.edu.