The Jackson Hole Symposium is an annual symposium that allows for open discussion on economic, stock, and currency issues currently facing the world. To learn more about the Jackson Hole Symposium, you can read the following trivia. Also, be sure to follow GIC's Instagram for more economic trivia!

Meet the Jackson Hole Symposium

The Jackson Hole Symposium is an annual symposium that allows open discussions on economic issues, stocks, and currency matters faced by the global economy. It is a leading conference that sees the presence of bankers, academics, finance ministers, among other prominent participants. Sponsored in 1978 by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, it has been a convergence point for the symposium since 1981. Serving as a platform for discussions on critical issues faced by the global economy, various topics touching on the world economy are considered each year. The strategic policy choices resulting from the discussed topics and their implications are reflected in each symposium.

Who participates in the Jackson Hole Symposium?

To encourage the open discussions known by the symposium, participants are selected based on the topic each year, considering diversity in region, background, and industry. In a typical year, around 120 people attend, including central bank governors, academics, financial market participants, and finance ministers from around the world.

What will be discussed at the Jackson Hole Symposium?

A key feature of the event was the in-depth discussions that took place among the participants. Given the participants and the topics discussed, there was great interest in the symposium. However, to help foster the open discussion that has been so critical to the success of the symposium, attendance at the event was limited. Similarly, while the Bank received numerous requests from media outlets around the world, press attendance was also limited to a select group to provide essential transparency to the symposium, but not to overwhelm or influence the proceedings. All symposium participants, including members of the press, paid a fee to attend.

The fees are then used to cover the costs of the event. To date, more than 150 authors have presented papers on topics such as inflation, labor markets, and international trade. The papers given to the Bank beforehand and presented at the annual economic policy symposium will be posted online when presented at the event.

Other papers, such as discussant comments, may not be provided until after the event but will be posted once available. Additionally, the transcript of the proceedings is posted on the website once available, a process that typically takes several months. Finally, the papers and transcripts are compiled into a proceedings book, which is posted on the website and published in a volume available online or in print, free of charge.

Jackson Hole Symposium in recent years?

Here are some discussions from the Jackson Hole Symposium in recent years. These discussions include:

Macroeconomic Policy in an Uneven Economy

The theme of the Jackson Hole Symposium on August 27-28 was Macroeconomic Policy in an Uneven Economy. Given the topic title, we anticipated that Chairman Powell's speech would focus on the medium-term journey of labor market recovery. Powell, in his semi-annual testimony before Congress on July 14-15, repeatedly highlighted that the post-pandemic recovery in the labor market has been uneven across demographic and income groups and emphasized the importance of and his commitment to ensuring the recovery of the labor market.

The discussion will likely focus on key labor market indicators — such as the labor force participation rate and employment to population — that the Fed is closely watching to gauge progress toward its maximum employment goal. That will be relevant to those looking for clues about how the Fed will approach raising interest rates.

Navigating the Decade Ahead: Implications for Monetary Policy

The global financial crisis and, now, the COVID-19 pandemic are among the bases for this discussion. Low equilibrium interest rates are likely to lead to longer and more frequent episodes in which conventional monetary policy is constrained by the effective lower bound (ELB) on the nominal rate.

Understanding why economic growth has been so slow, why interest rates have historically been low, how businesses form expectations, and how changes in those expectations affect economic activity is crucial for central bankers as they develop strategies to achieve their mandates. A versatile set of monetary policy tools and clear communication from central banks will be essential to achieve and maintain economic expansion, especially during times of financial stress.

To address this issue, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City sponsored a virtual symposium titled “Navigating the Decade Ahead: Implications for Monetary Policy” on August 27-28, 2020. The symposium brought together a group of central bank officials and academic, policy and business economists to discuss the economic developments of the past decade and how they might evolve over the next decade. Each day of the symposium began with a keynote address, followed by two papers by discussants, and concluded with a panel discussion.



Challenges for Monetary Policy

The global financial crisis offers a natural milestone to reflect on the challenges central banks faced at the time. The adequacy of the pre-crisis monetary policy framework was challenged by the severity of the recession and the uneven recovery experienced by many economies. The asynchronous nature of global growth after the crisis led central banks to chart different courses for the subsequent normalization of monetary policy, with most using both conventional and unconventional policy tools.

While some central banks are approaching neutral policy settings, others have yet to begin the process of removing policy accommodation, leading to divergent interests with implications for exchange rates, trade and economic activity. Amid the recent divergence, the decades-long downward trend in real interest rates and greater global and financial integration create common challenges shared by many central banks.
Given these emerging and ongoing global economic developments, the need for a forum to assess the challenges facing central banks as they pursue their mandates. The 2019 Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium therefore seeks to foster dialogue among central bankers from around the world. The global nature of the challenges facing the world economy requires an annual international meeting that the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Symposium is uniquely qualified to facilitate.

Changing Market Structures and Implications for Monetary Policy

Shifts in market structure over the past two decades have contributed to changes in productivity, growth, and inflation that are of concern to central bankers. In product markets, there has been a significant increase in economic activity associated with large multinational corporations along with increasing market concentration in many industries.

These developments suggest that large companies today may have more market power than in the past, and this shift could result in decreased competition across many industries. Central bankers must monitor this shift closely as it likely has important implications for observing structural changes in the global economy, including lower capital investment, declining labor share, slow productivity growth, slow wage growth, and reduced dynamism.
To address this issue, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City sponsored a symposium titled “Changing Market Structures and Implications for Monetary Policy,” August 23-25, 2018, in Jackson Hole, Wyo. Participants included central bankers, academic economists and individuals from around the world engaged in the economic analysis and implications of changing market structures. A number of themes emerged during the proceedings. First, the rise of “superstar firms” has been a key factor in the observed increase in market concentration across many industries.

Second, the increasing importance of intangible capital, such as software, intellectual property, and innovative business processes, relative to physical capital, has led to increased productivity in certain industries, such as the consumer sector, and stronger market power in other industries, such as healthcare. Third, the rise of online stores and their competition with brick-and-mortar stores has caused companies to alter their pricing decisions and has changed the inflation dynamics for the broader economy.

And finally, a study concluded that while there is evidence of a trade-off between competition and stability in the banking industry, policymakers can mitigate macroprudential concerns if increased competition is accompanied by good policy design. After learning about the Jackson Hole Symposium, along with who participated and some of the discussions in the past year, you can also find out other trivia discussions in the GIC Journal. In addition, you can register to be able to make a deposit at GIC starting from just 150,000 rupiah!