*  *  *  Introductory remarks I am pleased to follow President Duisenberg in introducing the first conference organized by the International Research Forum on Monetary Policy, sponsored jointly by the European Central Bank (ECB), the Federal Reserve System (Fed), the Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University, and the Center for Financial Studies at the Goethe University in Frankfurt.
For example, income inequality and the distribution of private sector debt can matter because of deviations from the assumption of a single representative agent. Likewise, the design of pension systems and, more broadly, fiscal developments can matter in view of non-Ricardian model features.