Simple rules limit the amount of information used and underrate the need for judgement in the use and interpretation of any economic model. They are no substitute for an ongoing articulated analysis of all the economic and monetary forces at work in the economy and for the need to check all policy proposals for their robustness across a variety of frameworks.
In the bargaining process, more attention was possibly paid to the links between real wages and productivity, while nominal wages, rather than looking at past inflation, tended to be evaluated in terms of new, much more moderate, inflation trends. This led to the consideration that, in order to maintain this moderation, it would be crucial to keep short-to-medium term inflation expectations under check.