Editors’ Summary of the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity – 2008 No 1

THE BROOKINGS PANEL ON ECONOMIC ACTIVITY held its eightyfifth
conference in Washington, D.C., on April 10 and 11, 2008. For this
conference—our first as editors of the journal—we selected papers on a
range of topics central to macroeconomics and economic policy: the relationship
between economic growth and people’s subjective well-being; the
effect of international trade on wages; the appropriate role of policies
designed to strengthen local economies; macroeconomic crises and asset
pricing; the impact of political constraints on the success of economic policy
reform; and the behavior of financial markets during the approach of world
wars. This issue of the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity presents the
six papers from the conference, comments by the formal discussants, and
synopses of the discussions of the papers by conference participants.