Having badly misjudged the strength of inflation over the past year, central bankers are now anxious to convey the message that they are determined not to repeat the mistakes of the 1970s. So much the better, you might think, because that era told us that the long-term costs of allowing inflation to become entrenched far outweigh the short-term ones of bringing it under control.Yet while the current threat of stagflation rhymes with the 1970s, the wider economic and financial context when Federal Reserve chair Paul Volcker started tightening policy in 1979 differed notably from today. Inflation was much higher and the advanced economies looked very different. It is important, then, to ponder the likely new mistakes of the 2020s.
在過(guò)去一年嚴(yán)重誤判了通脹強(qiáng)度之后，各國(guó)央行如今急于傳達(dá)這樣一個(gè)信息：他們決心不重蹈上世紀(jì)70年代的覆轍。你可能會(huì)認(rèn)為，這樣很好，因?yàn)槟莻€(gè)時(shí)代告訴我們，允許通脹扎根的長(zhǎng)期成本遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超過(guò)控制通脹的短期成本。