Conference jointly organized with the European Central Bank, Riksbank and Banco de España. The Program Committee was composed of Fabio Canova (Università Bocconi and UPF), Eric Leeper (Indiana University), Albert Marcet (IAE and UPF), Harald Uhlig (Humboldt University) and Tao Zha (FRB of Atlanta).

With the publication of his article "Macroeconomics and reality" in Econometrica twenty five years ago, Professor Chistopher Sims (currently at Princeton University) started a revolution in macroeconometrics by arguing that traditional macro models were plagued by "incredible overidentifying restrictions" and by proposing a more a-theoretical approach based on vector autoregressions. Since then, the work by Sims has influenced a whole generation of applied macroeconomists both in academia and in central banks.

The conference brought together academics, central bankers, and economists working in the ministry of economics of several countries to assess the progress made during the last twenty five years in applied macroeocnomics, highlighting in particular the contributions of Professor Christopher Sims.