As part of the response to the ongoing financial crisis, the U.S. government has significantly expanded its role in the economy. This increased direct involvement will surely be followed by legislative overhaul of the supervisory system. Individual and corporate market participants will also be adjusting their own behaviors and institutions in light of the experience of the past year. Both of these reactions may make it difficult for the government to exit policies designed to handle the crisis.

More broadly, the appropriate role of government in the economy is also in question. Should fiscal policy continue to be used aggressively to help to stabilize the economy? If so, are there better ways to design automatic stabilizers? Should monetary policy respond forcefully to apparent asset bubbles in the future? Would that make a repetition of the crisis less likely? Should the Federal Reserve retain some of its newly instituted credit facilities so as to have more levers on financial markets and the economy?

This AEI conference will combine the experiences of market participants with new analysis from academics. In the first session, AEI resident scholar Vincent R. Reinhart will present his findings gleaned from a series of conversations with market participants. Angel Ubide of Tudor Investment Corporation; Greg Ip, the U.S. economics editor of The Economist; and Christopher Whalen of Risk Analytics will respond.

The second session includes prominent academics who are all contributing scholarly papers to a forthcoming edited volume on the crisis. Frederic Mishkin and Ricardo Reis of Columbia University, Ethan Ilzetzki of London School of Economics, and Michael Bordo of Rutgers University will present an initial overview of the proposed research.