Professor Robert J. Gordon, the well-known macroeconomist, visited New Zealand recently to speak at the international conference “Markets and Models: Policy Frontiers in the AWH Phillips Tradition” held from 9 to 11 July 2008. Professor Gordon is Stanley G. Harris Professor in the Social Sciences and Professor of Economics at Northwestern University in Illinois, USA. He has written extensively on the topics of productivity, price indices and the Phillips curve. He served on the US Boskin Commission in 1995-96, which assessed the accuracy of the US Consumer Price Index. We caught up with Professor Gordon for a chat about macroeconomics and some of the challenges facing monetary policy.