The conference, a joint initiative of Banca d’Italia and the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), will focus on the role and functioning of monetary policy in an environment of weak growth and low inflation, examining the new transmission channels that revolve around the distributional implications of monetary policy and its impact on agents’ portfolios and attitudes towards risk. The conference will provide a forum for academic and central bank researchers engaged in exploring the new challenges faced by central banks today; it will give space to both empirical and theoretical contributions, and to positive and normative analyses. The organizing committee is comprised of Stefano Neri, Giuseppe Ferrero and Piergiorgio Alessandri (Bank of Italy), Paolo Surico (London Business School) e Nobuhiro Kiyotaki (Princeton University).