*  *  Introduction  There is presently little disagreement among economists that the ultimate goal of monetary policy should be price stability.
But core inflation, which reflects our demand-side inflationary pressures, is still in the mid-1% range. Research on the recent persistently low inflation Discussions of the causes for the divergence between economic conditions and prices are developing actively these days. The most representative argument concerns a so-called Phillips Curve flattening, involving a weakened relationship between economic slack and inflation.