In early 2006, at the request of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and New Zealand Treasury, four international academic experts and practitioners in the macro economic policy arena visited New Zealand. Their brief was to critically examine New Zealand’s macro economic policy framework and consider whether alternative, possibly non-conventional, policy tools might be used to provide a smoother ride for the externally exposed sectors of the economy over the business cycle. A conference was held held in Wellington on June 2006 to present the findings of the visiting experts and a volume of the conference proceedings was published in October. The following is the overview chapter from the volume written by the Editors.