OLIVIER BLANCHARD is the Robert M. Solow Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He did his undergraduate work in France and received a PhD in economics from MIT in 1977. He taught at Harvard from 1977 to 1982 and has taught at MIT since 1983. He has frequently received the award for best teacher in the department of economics. He is currently on leave from MIT and serves as the Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund.

He has done research on many macroeconomic issues, including the effects of fiscal policy, the role of expectations, price rigidities, speculative bubbles, unemployment in Western Europe, transition in Eastern Europe, the role of labour market institutions and the various aspects of the current crisis. He has done work for many governments and many international organisations, including the World Bank, the IMF, the OECD, the EU Commission and the EBRD. He has published over 150 articles and edited or written over 20 books, including Lectures on Macroeconomics with Stanley Fischer.

He is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a fellow of the Econometric Society, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a past vice-president of the American Economic Association. He currently lives in Washington, DC with his wife, Noelle. He has three daughters, Marie, Serena and Giulia.

JEFFREY SHEEN is a Professor of Economics at Macquarie University. He did his undergraduate work in Cape Town, and received a PhD in economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1977. He has held research and teaching positions at the London School of Economics, the University of Manchester, the University of Essex, the University of Sydney and Macquarie University. He has been a visiting economist at the Reserve Bank of Australia. His research has been in the general fields of macroeconomics and international economics. He has done both theoretical and applied work, with a substantial interest in the Australian economy. He has published widely in international journals. Jeffrey is council member of the Economics Society of Australia, and has been a council member of the Australasian Standing Committee of the Econometric Society. He is currently the managing editor of the Economic Record, Australia’s leading professional economics journal. He is a member of the Shadow Reserve Bank Board at the Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis at the Australian National University. He currently lives in Sydney. He has two adult children, Rani and Jacob, who live in Toronto, Canada.