This paper was the keynote address at the conference "Financial services at the crossroads: capital regulation in the twenty-first century." The conference, held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on February 26-27, 1998, was designed to encourage a consensus between the public and private...

For some time, the use of monetary and fiscal policies to smooth business cycle fluctuations has taken a back seat to longer term objectives of restoring price stability and fiscal balance. More recently, however, weaker economic performance in some of the world’s economies, most notably in...