Conference jointly sponsored with the CEPR, through the "Macroeconomic Policy Design for Monetary Unions" European Commission RTN. The Programme Committee was formed by Jordi Galí (CREI, UPF and CEPR), Roberto Perotti (IGIER and CEPR) and Charles Wyplosz (GIIS, SITE and CEPR).

The goal of the conference was to provide a rigorous account of the operation of macroeconomic policy in Europe, both within the euro area and in its periphery. It was built on the latest developments in macroeconomics to assess:

• the need for coordination between monetary and fiscal authorities (and/or among the fiscal authorities themselves) within EMU
• the desirability of alternative monetary and exchange rate arrangements for neighbouring European countries which are not members of EMU
• deficit and debt spillovers, sustainability of fiscal policies and the role of the Stability and Growth Pact
• and empirical fiscal policy rules

Overall, the conference has emphasized the need for structural modeling, since this is the only way to give a causal interpretation to the observed empirical regularities, and to give policy recommendations that are justified from a welfare point of view.