The 12th BIS Annual Conference took place in Lucerne, Switzerland on 20-21 June 2013. The event brought together a distinguished group of central bank governors, leading academics and former public officials to exchange views on the conference theme of "Navigating the Great Recession: what role for monetary policy?". This volume contains the opening address by Stephen Cecchetti (former Economic Adviser, BIS), a keynote address by Finn Kydland (University of California, Santa Barbara) and the contributions of the policy panel. The participants in the policy panel, chaired by Jaime Caruana (General Manager, BIS), were Zeti Akhtar Aziz (Bank Negara Malaysia), Thomas Jordan (Swiss National Bank) and Glenn Stevens (Reserve Bank of Australia).