The Austrian National Bank and SUERF have announced the 53rd Economics Conference, to be held in Vienna on 18 and 19 June 2026 under the theme “Monetary policy trade-offs in a heterogeneous currency area”. The event will focus on the challenges of conducting a single monetary policy in a large currency area such as the euro area, where the same measure can have uneven effects across sectors, regions and countries and can create trade-offs between price stability and financial imbalances. The programme will examine how heterogeneity shapes monetary policy decisions and how fiscal and macroprudential policy could complement monetary policy in supporting the price stability objective. It will open with a fireside chat between OeNB Governor Martin Kocher and International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, followed by sessions on policy issues, analytical questions and research findings featuring speakers including Bas ter Weel of De Nederlandsche Bank, Mariana Kühnel of Austria’s Financial Market Authority and Michal Horváth of Národná banka Slovenska. The conference will be held at the Austrian National Bank’s headquarters and will be available in hybrid format.