 Good morning, everyone. It's a great pleasure to welcome you to this joint conference of the ACB and the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking on Financial Intermediation, Regulation and Economic Policy. The conference celebrates half a century of activity of the journal whose first issue was released in the first quarter of 1969, exactly 50 years ago. Since its inception, the journal has welcomed papers on both monetary and financial topics, thus addressing a large and diverse audience of readers. Over the years, the journal has fueled an academic and policy debate in the fields of money, credit and banking by publishing influential contributions of top economists. The first volume, for example, featured contributions by Milton Friedman, Franco Modigliani and James Dobbin. Going back to the first volume, I would like to quote the words that the editor Carl Brunner used to describe the aim of the newly established journal. The journal endeavors particularly to close the gap between policy discussions on the one side and economic analysis on the other side. I think that you would agree with me that an aspiration from a half a century ago has largely become a reality nowadays. Policy discussions and decisions are currently rooted in and anchored to the economic analysis and research and interactions between academics and policy makers are very strong and active. I am confident that two days of very interesting discussions on financial intermediation and regulation are ahead of us. The conference programs shines for the high quality of the papers and the caliber of the speakers. The papers on the program broadly contribute to delve into the link between macroeconomic fluctuations and financial frictions, as well as to identify the impact of specific policy measures on the behavior of financial intermediaries, mostly banks, and in turn highlight their implications for financial performance and financial stability. These contributions are important for the ECB, given its financial stability mandate. As is the case for the major central banks around the globe. These contributions have become even more important as the role of banking supervisor for the countries of the European Banking Union was assigned, as you know, to the ECB. Being abreast with the latest developments in financial research not only contributes to improve the decision-making process in these core functions, but it is also relevant for the conduct and implementation of monetary policy. Changes in financial conditions have always played a role for the assessment of the risk to price stability and thus for the conduct of monetary policy. But even more so after the latest financial crisis when financial intermediaries under health have been recognized to play a crucial role for macroeconomic stability and the transmission of monetary policy. Overall, the conference program presents us with a picture of a mutating financial system. Financial intermediaries and their activities evolve in response to economic conditions, technological developments, policy interventions, and unfortunately also crisis. They adapt their scale, scope and structure to a never-changing environment. Today, as in the past, the essence of financial intermediation resides in channeling resources from savers to productive activities while offering maturity, liquidity, and credit services. However, financial intermediaries are very different today from what they used to be some decades ago. Think, for example, of the role of banks in the financial system and the relevance in terminating facts. These are important issues to reflect on since they have implications for the risks and vulnerabilities that are inherently associated with financial intermediation. The evolving nature of the financial system is also important when thinking of the challenges that are ahead of regulators and supervisors. How should regulators and supervisors behave given the ever-evolving nature of the financial system whose changes are directly driven by their actions? Are the inherent risks and vulnerabilities of financial intermediation also evolving over time and with the structure of the financial system? In which parts of the financial system are now vulnerabilities and risks building up? These questions are closely related to the risk of regulatory arbitrage which will be explored here at the conference. Compliance with a strict regulation and supervision entails costs for financial intermediaries and as a result may lead to relocation of some activities outside of the regulatory perimeter thus contributing to the rise of the non-bank financial sector. On the one hand, the growth of non-bank finance entails tangible benefits in terms of increased diversification of funding sources and investment opportunities. On the other hand, it hints to the possibility that regulation may induce risks and fragilities to migrate to other parts of the financial system which are subject to less stringent regulation and supervision. In this context, it is of paramount importance for regulators to remain vigilant. Be aware of and closely monitor the developments in both regulated bank and less related non-bank financial sectors. Research can be, for sure, a valuable ally in this process. The growing role of funds in credit intermediation in the Euriria financial system is an example of the trade-off associated with the migration of financial intermediation activities to less regulated parts of the financial system and of the challenges that this poses for regulators and supervisors. Since 2008, total assets held by investment funds have grown from 15% to 42% of banking sector assets. And the rise has contributed to a significant change in the structure of the financial sector. Investment funds are regulated but far less than banks, which may pose significant risks from a macroprudential perspective. Past experiences have helped us to recognize the danger associated with interconnectedness, liquidity mismatch and leverage, as well as to identify effective tools to curb associated risks. For all these reasons, I very much welcome the recent discussion and proposals concerning the extension of the macroprudential framework to non-banks, like liquidity buffers and redemption restrictions. I also hope that some of the speakers in the policy panel this afternoon will let us know their views about how a level playing field robust to regulatory arbitrage can be ensured. I am sure that the discussions over the coming days will offer important elements to reflect on these issues and elaborate or re-elaborate lessons from the past. This will not only help to shape the actions of regulators and supervisors at the current juncture, but also to anticipate future transformations in the financial intermediation activities. Thank you very much. Good morning. I'm Bob DeYoung from University of Kansas, and I'm the co-editor of the JMCB. Thank you, Luis, for your welcoming remarks, your warm thoughts about the journal. I want to thank the European Central Bank for being so kind to us to make the facility available to us for all the support and for helping all of you, many of you be here. And thank you for everybody for being here too. This is a terrific turnout, and we're looking forward to a nice conference. This is actually the first of two conferences to mark the 50th birthday of the JMCB. In Frankfurt here, we'll be focusing on financial intermediation and financial regulation. Next month at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, we'll have a second conference that'll focus on monetary economics, macroeconomics, and macro policy. The proceedings of both of these conferences will be published in special issues of the JMCB. Luke Levin, who's the Director General of Research here at the ECB, and Philip Hartman, the Deputy Director of Research, are joining me as co-editors of the special issue that's associated with the conference today and tomorrow. We received 170 manuscripts from people who wanted to participate in the conference and the celebration. So we had many, many, many high quality papers enough to populate multiple conference programs, and we had to make many decisions on that. The three of us would like to thank the keynote speakers, the panelists, the paper discussants, for being so generous with their time and coming to Frankfurt to help participate and help celebrate. We are indeed honored to have, you can tell I'm actually reading the speech at this point, you're indeed, we are indeed honored to have so many impressive folks joining us today and tomorrow. And I say that very seriously. We're humbled, in fact. At moments like this, there's a temptation to look back across 50 years at the accomplishments of the journal and the contributions of scholars and policymakers whose work has appeared in the journal. I would like to just let those accomplishments speak for themselves. I prefer to look forward to the future. And as far as I'm concerned with the journal, that future starts today here in Frankfurt. I'm going to make one exception to this, though. The GMC editorial board has always included one or two co-editors whose expertise and reputation clearly signaled that they are, quote, unquote, banking editors. And I'm extremely pleased that four of these banking editors are here today to participate in the conference. And I'd like to just recognize them. Debbie Lucas, who is a GMCB banking editor from 2005 to 2009. Mark Flannery, who was a GMCB co-editor from 2000 to 2005. Alan Berger, who was a co-editor of the GMCB from 1994 to 2001. And Stephen Chacatti, who was a co-editor from 1992 through 2001. A job well done by these folks. And well, I think that's enough for looking backwards. It's time to look forward. It's my pleasure to introduce Gary Gordon, as this morning's keynote speaker. Professor Gordon is the Frederick Frank Class of 1954 Professor of Finance at Yale University's School of Management. Before joining Yale in 2008, he was the Robert Morris Professor of Banking and Finance at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. I think the word polymath is really cool, and I don't get to use it very much. So I will say that in 21st century terms, Professor Gordon is a bit of a polymath. He's a voluminous record of academic publications in both finance and economics, including both empirical contributions and theoretical contributions. He also writes about finance and economics for public consumption, including most recently a pair of books that help explain the financial crisis. He also understands that ideas are not very important unless they can be applied. And as such, he's served as a consultant to the Federal Reserve, to the Central Banks of England, Japan, and Turkey, and to AIG financial products. And finally, to fully appreciate Professor Gordon's breadth of interest, you have to know the following. His first two academic degrees from Oberlin College and from University of Michigan were in Chinese studies. So with that introduction, Gary, we welcome you to Frankfurt. We look forward to hearing your thoughts this morning.