In addition to this rather difficult problem, we need to consider the possibility that major industrial countries, including Japan, are entering a “new price revolution era”. Such development has been born of the rapid expansion of economic activity related to information and telecommunications, in other words the “IT revolution”.
This is characterized by extremely rapid technological innovation which induces price declines through the improvement in productivity and the development of new products. Since the mid-1990s the United States has witnessed stable and low inflation under extremely low  5  BIS Review 26/2000  unemployment, partly because economic expansion has been supported by the IT revolution. This phenomenon contradicts past experience.