In fact, policy has been remarkably successful in recent years in bringing inflation down in virtually all industrial countries. So much so, that a number of issues are now coming to the fore that were previously considered as of second-order importance.
These questions include: how to avoid bias in the measurement of inflation; whether inflation should be zero or some low positive number; whether the authorities’ objective should be expressed in terms of inflation or the price level; and how quickly one should return to the stated objective after a disturbance.