Controlling Inflation

Abstract

Ministers and central bankers in European countries almost always express their economic policy objectives as controlling inflation, or reducing it, or even eliminating it. This rhetorical habit became pronounced during the British governments of Margaret Thatcher, and the statements of chancellors of the exchequer in the 1990s, as well as central bankers all over Europe, have generally maintained it. And in the EU-wide context, ‘price stability’ is specified in the treaty (to permit EMU to proceed) as the primary responsibility of the ESCB.