RBA Annual Conference – 2026 Monetary Policy Trade-offs

Sydney,
Final versions of the Conference papers and discussion will be published at a later date.

The Reserve Bank of Australia’s 2026 Research Conference brought together global experts from the public sector, academia, and various other central banks to discuss monetary policy trade-offs. Sessions explored how these trade-offs might manifest, how we measure these trade-offs, and how the anchoring of inflation expectations affects the trade-offs. The Conference concluded with a Panel Discussion of senior central bankers discussing how they deal with monetary policy trade-offs in practice.

The Conference was conducted under the Chatham House rule.

OVERVIEW

Overview of the 2026 RBA Annual Conference on Monetary Policy Trade-offs

SESSION ONE

Monetary Policy Trade-offs Keynote Address

  • Muted or Mismeasured? Monetary Policy Trade-offs Over Fifty Years of Rate Cycles

    Presenter: Kristen Forbes, MIT Sloan School of Management
    (address not yet available) | Download the presentation 1.04MB
SESSION TWO

How Might Trade-offs Manifest?

  • The Economic Costs of Climate Change

    Presenter: Mark Howden, Australian National University
    (paper is not yet available) | Download the presentation 1.87MB
  • Discussant: Angelia Grant, The Treasury
SESSION THREE

How Do We Measure These Trade-offs?

SESSION FOUR

How Does the Anchoring of Inflation Expectations Affect the Trade-offs?

SESSION FIVE

Dealing With Trade-offs in Practice

  • Panel Discussion (summary to be published at a later date, along with final versions of papers and discussions)
Moderator: Sarah Hunter, Reserve Bank of Australia
Panellist: Soohyung Lee, Bank of Korea
Panellist: Karen Silk, Reserve Bank of New Zealand
Panellist: Nicolas Vincent, Bank of Canada
PARTICIPANTS

List of Participants