However, while it may be necessary to take active policy measures in the short run to solve the crisis, it is equally important to learn from historical lessons of the past so we can be better prepared for the future. Why are we here? Why has Norges Bank taken the initiative to this workshop? To answer this we have to turn the clock back to the time of the birth of Norges Bank right after the end of the Napoleonic wars in Europe. Six laws about the Norwegian monetary system, passed by the Norwegian Parliament in 1816, paved the way for the establishment of Norges Bank. The Norwegian Constitution of 17 May 1814 specified that the Parliament should oversee the monetary system but made no explicit reference to a central bank. The Constitution was modified in November 1814 after Sweden showed some military muscle to enforce the Treaty of Kiel. The revised Constitution was in place on 4 November 1814, and the main changes reflected the fact that Norway had entered a loose union with Sweden under a common King. A change, often overlooked, was that a new paragraph had been added which explicitly stated that Norway should keep its own bank and monetary system. Hence the Norwegian Parliament preserved an independent legal authority to decide on Norway’s monetary system and institutions under the union with Sweden. Norges Bank is thus celebrating its 200-year anniversary in 2016 and has announced ambitious targets for its Bicentenary Project.
In 2016 we want to see that this project has produced three high quality books on The History of Norges Bank 1816-2016, The Monetary History of Norway 1816-2016 and on selected Topics in Central Banking in an international historical perspective. The aim of the workshop is to bring together international experts from central banks and academia for informal discussions and an exchange on topics related to the writing of central bank and monetary history. We expect discussions to be active and lively and we want this workshop to kick-start research activities in these important areas. I want to thank the Graduate Institute here in Geneva and Professor Marc Flandreau in particular for their hospitality and for allowing us to spend almost two days discussing research in central bank and monetary history. Previous books about the history of Norges Bank have been written in Norwegian, and predominantly by previous central bank governors. But “the times they are a-changin”, to  BIS Review 131/2008  1  phrase Bob Dylan (Dylan, 1964), 1 and today we believe that best practice in writing central bank and monetary history is achieved by contributions from professional academic experts in relevant areas. The research should be brought up to international quality standards through the usual peer review process.