The long disinflation which began in the early 1980s has resulted in price stability in most countries, and the possibility of inflation falling too far - becoming deflation - was openly talked about around the world last year in a way which had not happened in half a century.
A result of all of this has been that interest rates in the world’s key financial centres have fallen to exceptionally low levels. At present, the average short-term interest rate in the ‘big three’ economies is 1 per cent, the lowest in a hundred years. There have also been major changes in exchange rates over the past year or two.