Price stability is not sufficient to ensure macroeconomic stability

In an interview in early December 2019, William White suggested that central banks had given too much importance to the pursuit of price stability in recent decades. There are no costs associated with declining prices when the underlying cause is increases in productivity. Moreover, resisting disinflationary pressures with monetary easing, cycle after cycle, leads to a buildup of  debt and other economic imbalances that do more to threaten sustainable growth than to sustain it. Accordingly, more reliance should be put on fiscal policy in the next economic downturn. Indeed, it was a mistake not to have done so earlier.

 

MNIGregQuinnInterviewpdf