Contents Wage Inequality and Regional Unemployment Persistence: U.S. vs. Europe, Guiseppe Bertola and Andreas Ichino • Capital Utilization and Returns to Scale, Craig Burnside, Martin Eichenbaum, and Sergio Rebelo • Banks and Derivatives, Gary Gorton and Richard Rosen • Exchange-Rate-Based Stabilizations: Theory and Evidence, Sergio Rebelo and Carlos Vegh • Inflation Indicators and Inflation Policy, Stephen Cecchetti • Recent Central Bank Reforms and the Role of Price Stability as the Sole Objective of Monetary Policy, Carl Walsh • Is Central Bank Independence (and Low Inflation) the Result of Effective Financial Opposition to Inflation?, Adam Posen • The Unending Quest for Monetary Salvation, Stanley Fischer Ben S. Bernanke is Professor at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. Julio Rotemberg is Professor of Applied Economics at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.