Aggressive tightening of monetary policy to stave off inflation is a fine line to walk
Paul Volcker, who chaired the US Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1987, is most famous as the central banker who slayed the inflation dragon, unleashed by energy shocks and central bank policies that were excessively pro-growth, ignoring supply-side inflation drivers.
The inevitable result is rising prices. For much of the post-global financial crisis period the primary challenge facing global central banks was the opposite: excess global supply and insufficient demand, leading to stubbornly low inflation and sporadic deflation scares. This bias is likely to have prompted the initial reaction to view the spike as “transitory”, something that is likely to roll over into deflation as higher energy prices feed into the base.
It is possible that policymakers manage to thread the needle between “fire” and “ice” — the mythical “soft landing” — but for now markets are more concerned with the increasing probability of the extremes of too hot or too cold, both of which have unpleasant implications for asset prices. On the other hand, more persistent above-target inflation is sure to require even higher real interest rates in time, constraining economic activity in a more protracted fashion and raising the cost of capital for business across the board.
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