Ten years after the untimely passing of Curzio Giannini, the brilliant Bank of Italy economist, the conference brought together academics and policy makers to discuss the changing role and functions of central banks and monetary institutions.
The conference was organized around the four main challenges posed by the recent financial crisis to the theory and the evolution of central banking, namely: a) the tensions and complementarities between the central banks' mandates for price stability and financial stability; b) the management of supranational money in an under-institutionalized environment; c) the evolution of money and payment systems; d) the safeguard of central bank independence and the changing relationship with government.
Each of these themes were distinctively and presciently anticipated in Giannini's posthumous book "The Age of Central Banks" (2011, Italian edition 2004), in which he combined historic, institutional and economic analyses to produce a consistent "theory" of the history of central banks that can be used to interpret the various phases of their evolution as well as to facilitate the interpretation of the problems that have come to the forefront during the recent financial crisis.
