The Most Pronounced Disinflation Since 1981

Inflation outcomes are the ultimate test of whether monetary policy has been too easy or too tight. With disinflationary pressures in the US at their most pronounced since the Volcker disinflation of the early 1980s, critics of quantitative easing would do well to ponder the counter-factual in which US monetary policy was not as accommodative. The data suggest that the risk of inflation being too low has been greater than the risk of inflation being too high.