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.
在过去一年严重误判了通胀强度之后，各国央行如今急于传达这样一个信息：他们决心不重蹈上世纪70年代的覆辙。你可能会认为，这样很好，因为那个时代告诉我们，允许通胀扎根的长期成本远远超过控制通胀的短期成本。