BIS Review 79/1999  8  ANNUAL INFLATION RATES: NEW ZEALAND AND SELECTED OECD COUNTRIES (Sources: Statistics New Zealand and International Financial Statistics, RBNZ calculation)  Note also that our current inflation performance is not, in any sense, extremist by international standards. Rather, it sits at or about the OECD average. However, an assessment that stopped at inflation performance alone would be simplistic.
As we have noted on many occasions, price stability is not an end in itself. Rather, it is a means to an end. Price stability is targeted only because that is the best contribution that monetary policy can make to broader economic welfare. So has our monetary policy made a positive contribution to our economic welfare more broadly defined?