FOR central banks in the rich world, two is a magic number. If prices rise at 2% a year, most shoppers can more or less ignore their slow ascent. And a touch of inflation is hugely helpful: it gives bosses a way to nudge unproductive workers—a pay freeze actually means a 2% cut—and an incentive to invest their earnings. Most importantly it keeps economies away from deflation and the depressing choices—hoarding cash, delaying purchases—that falling prices can bring. Yet despite the professed adherence to the 2% mantra, a period of falling prices is on the cards.
The whiff of deflation is everywhere (see chart 1). Even in America, Britain and Canada—all growing at more than 2%—inflation is well below target. Prices are cooling in the east, with Chinese inflation a meagre 0.8%. Japan’s 2.4% rate is set to evaporate, as it slips back into deflation; Thailand is already there. But it is the euro zone that is most striking. Its inflationary past—price rises averaged 11% a year in Italy and 20% in Greece in the 1980s—is a distant memory. Today 15 of the area’s 19 members are in deflation; the highest inflation rate, in Austria, is just 1%.
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FOR central banks in the rich world, two is a magic number. If prices rise at 2% a year, most shoppers can more or less ignore their slow ascent. And a touch of inflation is hugely helpful: it gives bosses a way to nudge unproductive workers—a pay freeze actually means a 2% cut—and an incentive to invest their earnings. Most importantly it keeps economies away from deflation and the depressing choices—hoarding cash, delaying purchases—that falling prices can bring. Yet despite the professed adherence to the 2% mantra, a period of falling prices is on the cards.
The whiff of deflation is everywhere (see chart 1). Even in America, Britain and Canada—all growing at more than 2%—inflation is well below target. Prices are cooling in the east, with Chinese inflation a meagre 0.8%. Japan’s 2.4% rate is set to evaporate, as it slips back into deflation; Thailand is already there. But it is the euro zone that is most striking. Its inflationary past—price rises averaged 11% a year in Italy and 20% in Greece in the 1980s—is a distant memory. Today 15 of the area’s 19 members are in deflation; the highest inflation rate, in Austria, is just 1%.
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