Michael D. Bordo is professor of economics and director of the Center for Monetary and Financial History at Rutgers University, New Jersey. He is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He holds a PhD from the University of Chicago. He has published many articles in leading journals in monetary economics and economic history. Recent publications include A Retrospective on the Bretton Woods International Monetary System (1993, with Barry Eichengreen), The Defining Moment: The Great Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century (1998, with Claudia Goldin and Eugene White), Essays on the Gold Standard and Related Regimes (Cambridge University Press, 1999; paperback 2005), and Globalization in Historical Perspective (2003, with Alan Taylor and Jeffrey Williamson). He is also a founding and managing editor of the Cambridge University Press Studies in Macroeconomic History series. William Roberds is a research economist and policy advisor with the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. His areas of responsibility include basic research and policy analysis. Dr Roberds's research focuses primarily on the fields of payment systems, macroeconomics and econometrics. His research has been published in leading economic journals including the Journal of Monetary Economics, the International Economic Review and the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, as well as in Federal Reserve System publications. Dr Roberds joined the Bank in July 1987. Previously he was an assistant professor at Brown University (1982–84) and an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis (1984–87). He received his PhD from Carnegie Mellon University.