Left to Right: Michael Bordo, Ignazio Visco (Gov. Bank of Italy), Christine LaGarde (Managing Director IMF), Øystein Olsen (Norwegian Central Bank), Jacob Frenkel (former Govenor of the Bank of Israel), Lars Rohde (Governor of the Danish Central Bank)
Professor Bordo recalls the celebration . . .
On June 16 2016 the Norges Bank, Norway's central bank, celebrated its two hundredth birthday at a gala event in Oslo. I was invited to attend because I have been advising them on their bicentenary project for the past decade. Leading to the event I was involved in a team that produced 4 books (three of which were published in my series with Cambridge University Press: Studies in Macroeconomic History). On June 16 a high level conference with participation by central bank governors from around the world as well as Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the IMF, was held.
Left to right: Oyvind Etrheim (Research Director Central Bank of Norway), Jan Qvigstad (Deputy Gov. Central Bank of Norway), Marc Flandreau (Professor of Economics, Graduate Institute of International Studies and Development, Geneva), Michael Bordo (Professor of Economics, Rutgers)
At the end of the conference there was a book launch of the volume Central Banks at a Crossroads which I had edited with Marc Flandreau of the Graduate Institute in Geneva as well as with Oyvind Eitreim, Research Director of Norges Bank and Jan Qvigstad, Deputy Governor. That book contained 15 essays on the history of central banking of which three were written by Rutgers faculty (myself, Hugh Rockoff and Eugene White). The event was most memorable. It was preceded by a boat ride in Oslo harbor (accompanied by a speedboat full of heavily armed security personnel) and then a reception and dinner aboard the Fram, the vessel that Roald Admundsen took to both the North and South poles over a century ago.