Indeed, when inflation is at the lower end of the range and conventional policy tools are close to exhausted, the costs of using unconventional measures to drive inflation up outweigh the benefits in terms of preparing the ground for higher inflation in a not so distant future.
The central bank should thus not be obsessive about delivering on its aim of a close to 2% inflation rate. Let me address each of these issues in turn. How patient can a central bank be? On the face of it, the argument that central banks can tolerate periods of too-low inflation is correct.