The program committee was formed by Fernando Broner, Alberto Martin, and Jaume Ventura (CREI and UPF). The conference brought together top researchers writing on different aspects of sovereign risk. This allowed for some very interesting interactions among empirical, historical, and theoretical researchers. A highlight of the conference was the panel on "Rethinking the Effects of Financial Liberalization", formed by Michael Kremer (Harvard), Jaume Ventura (CREI and UPF), and Jeromin Zettelmeyer (IMF). Some of the topics discussed at the conference were the role of markets in alleviating problems of sovereign risk, the redesign of the sovereign debt restructuring mechanism and the relationship between sovereign defaults and private credit markets.