MAINTAINING STABILITY, PROMOTING SUSTAINABLE GROWTH AMIDST GLOBAL CHALLENGES

Abstract

theme of this conference was “Maintaining Stability, Promoting Sustainable Growth amidst Global Challenges”. Through this broad theme, and in-light of the ongoing unprecedented global economic challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, this conference encouraged the rethinking of: (i) economic policy priorities amidst the global pandemic; and (ii) the economic policy mix for maintaining stability, sustaining growth, and promoting equitable welfare in the post-pandemic era. The annual BMEB conference attracts research from all over the world that focus on key macroeconomic/monetary policy and economic growth issues. Over the years the BMEB annual conference has become the premier conference in business and economics in Indonesia. The global popularity of the conference has grown immensely boosted by BMEB’s SCOPUS accreditation in 2019. The 14th conference received around 250 submissions. These submissions came from 30 different countries, with a total of 146 international paper submissions, reflecting the global appeal of the conference. These high volume of high-quality submissions at the height of the pandemic reflects the global standing of the BMEB annual conference. Of the international papers presented at the conference, we the guest editors chose seven papers that we believe bring diversity on coverage of topics and can inspire more research. These papers were selected based on the journal’s rigorous review process. First, they were read by the guest editors and authors revised in response to our comments. Second, each paper was presented at a BMEB special session during the conference and each paper had a discussant. The discussant report was then used to revise the papers further before they were submitted to BMEB. Third, upon submission to BMEB, each paper was reviewed by two expert reviewers, leading to a third round of revisions. The papers were then accepted following this process. In addition to these seven papers, we decided to also publish the keynote speech entitled “Rethinking Macroeconomy and Central Banking in the New Normal”given at the conference by the Governor of Bank Indonesia, Dr. Perry Warjiyo. The keynote speech is an important policy document because it discusses key issues for central bank policy mix and maps the potential challenges that the world economy is likely to face in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The coverage of the special issue is broad and is intentionally kept that way to have greater visibility and impact with a focus also on issues emanating due to the EDITORIAL