But others have put forward the view that monetary policy should only care about price stability, without any direct concern with output. The origins of this can be found in Friedman’s monetarism (he was, of course, concerned above all with price stability). It seems only a minor elision to slip from monetarism to a single objective for monetary policy.
As an aside, complaints about high bank spreads are also an important issue in Jamaica, so much so that three years ago, the Jamaica Manufacturers Association filed a complaint with the country’s Fair Trading Commission alleging collusion in rate setting. The FTC cleared the institutions saying that it found no evidence to substantiate the charge.