Rather, by the late eighties it had become increasingly recognised here and abroad that the best contribution BIS Review 36/1998  -2-  which monetary policy could make to those other objectives - social justice, growth in employment, growth in output - was to deliver predictably stable prices.
And indeed, this point is now recognised quite explicitly in the wording of the Policy Targets Agreement between the Treasurer and myself. Monetary policy aimed at stable prices assists social justice by avoiding the kind of capricious transfers of income and wealth which are the inevitable result of inflation.