Editors' Introduction to the Special Issue

In February 2019, the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking (JMCB) turned 50. The editors of the journal decided to celebrate this anniversary with two conferences, reflecting the two broad areas that the journal covers. A first conference on "Financial intermediation, regulation and economic policy" was held at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt/Germany on March 28-29, 2019, and addressed topics in the credit and financial intermediation fields. A second conference addressed topics in the macro-economic and monetary fields, and took place at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on May 30-31, 2019. This Special Issue displays the best contributions to the first conference. The contributions to the second celebratory conference are published in a separate Special Issue.