This volume contains recent surveys of the most important topics in economics.

This is the third of three volumes containing edited versions of papers and commentaries presented in invited symposium sessions of the Eighth World Congress of the Econometric Society. The papers summarize and interpret recent key developments and discuss future directions in a wide range of topics in economics and econometrics. The papers cover both theory and applications. Written by leading specialists in their fields, these volumes provide a unique survey of progress in the discipline.

1. Contracting constraints, credit markets, and economic development Abhijit V. Banerjee
2. Extracting business cycle indexes from large data sets: aggregation, estimation, identification Lucrezia Reichlin
3. Macroeconomic forecasting using many predictors Mark W. Watson
Comments on papers by Lucrezia Reichlin and by Mark W. Watson Frank Diebold
4. How severe is the time inconsistency problem in monetary policy? Stephania Albenesi, V. V. Chari and Lawrence J. Christiano
5. New perspectives on monetary policy, inflation, and the business cycle Jordi Gali
Comments on papers by Jordi Gali and by Stephania Albenesi V. V. Chari and Lawrence J. Christiano
6. Consumption smoothing and extended families Orazio P. Attanasio and Jose-Victor Rios-Rull
7. Computational methods for dynamic equilibria with heterogeneous agents Kenneth L. Judd, Felix Kubler and Kaarl Schmedders.