TO:	Participants, Nineteenth Annual Conference on Macroeconomics

FROM:	Rob Shannon; Assistant Director, Conferences

DATE:	March 23, 2004

RE:	Papers for the Conference

Enclosed please find the preliminary program, preliminary participant list and five of the six papers scheduled for presentation at the NBER's Nineteenth Annual Conference on Macroeconomics. The conference, organized by Mark Gertler and Kenneth Rogoff, will be held April 2 and 3, 2004 at the Royal Sonesta Hotel, 5 Cambridge Parkway, Cambridge, MA, 617/491-3600. There will be a reception and dinner for all conference participants on Friday, April 2 at 6:00 pm at the hotel.

The enclosed papers are as follows:

ERIC ENGEN, American Enterprise Institute

R. GLENN HUBBARD, Columbia University and NBER

Federal Government Debt and Interest Rates

DOMENICO GIANNONE, ECARES

LUCREZIA REICHLIN, ECARE

LUCA SALA, IGIER

Monetary Policy in Real Time

JORDI GALI, Universitat Pompeu Fabra and NBER

PAU RABANAL, International Monetary Fund

Technology Shocks and Aggregate Fluctuations:

How Well Does the RBC Model Fit Postwar U.S. Data?

DAVID BACKUS, New York University and NBER

BRYAN ROUTLEDGE, Carnegie Mellon University

STANLEY ZIN, Carnegie Mellon University and NBER

Exotic Preferences for Macroeconomists

PAUL GOMME, University of Iowa

RICHARD ROGERSON, Arizona State University and NBER

PETER RUPERT, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

RANDALL WRIGHT, University of Pennsylvania and NBER

The Business Cycle and the Life Cycle

The remaining paper:

GRAZIELLA KAMINSKY, George Washington University and NBER

CARMEN REINHART, International Monetary Fund and NBER

CARLOS VEGH, UC, Los Angeles and NBER

When It Rains It Pours: Procylical Capital and Policies in Developing Countries

will be made available on the NBER's Conference Department homepage and at the conference. The NBER's Conference Department homepage address is www.nber.org/~confer.

Hotel reservations have been made, as requested, at the Royal Sonesta Hotel. If your plans should change, please contact me immediately so that I may make the appropriate arrangements.

Authors will have 20 minutes to present their papers, each discussant will have 20 minutes to comment on the paper, and the remaining 30 minutes will be for general discussion.

If you have any questions please contact me at 617-868-3900, FAX 617-864-1825 or E-
MAIL confer@nber.org.