Price stability, on the contrary, contributes to the efficient allocation of the economy's resources by enhancing the transparency of the price mechanism and by preventing both tax distortions and an individual misallocation of savings and wealth.
While previous data had suggested a rather sharp slowdown in the last quarter of 1998, the revised data imply a pattern of slowing real GDP growth which was spread more evenly over the course of 1998. 2. The weakening of output growth came to a halt during the first quarter of 1999. Data for industrial production for April 1999 confirm this picture.