Since the invention of money, pressure to finance government debt and deficits, directly or indirectly, has been the single most important driver of inflation. It is not at all clear, however, that improved fiscal policy has been the main driver of the recent disinflation. ; Whatever the explanation of global disinflation, the raw data are stunning. In recent years, inflation around the world has dropped to levels that, only two decades ago, seemed frustratingly unattainable. If one takes into account technical biases in the construction of the CPI, as well as central banks’ desire to maintain a small amount of padding to facilitate relative price adjustment and avoid deflation, then disinflation has already run its full course in most industrialized countries. In the developing world, if current trends persist—with the emphasis on “if”—inflation will be tamed within a decade.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Article provided by Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City in its journal Economic Review.
Volume (Year): (2003) Issue (Month): Q IV () Pages: 45-78 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML,
plain text,
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote),
ReDIF
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.) This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.