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MEHREEN KHAN | COMMENT

They were right that inflation would be transitory (in the end)

Team Transitory’s core argument in 2021, was that climbing inflation, which was largely concentrated in goods, did not warrant higher interest rates

The Times

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Narrated by Mehreen Khan

For a handful of economists, the start of the year has been a time for score-settling. A group of much-derided academics, mostly in the United States, are finally feeling vindicated over their prognosis that inflation would prove a transitory phenomenon in the end.

For much of the past two years, “transitory” has become a slur in economics parlance, wheeled out to bash central bankers for being asleep at the wheel at a time of of exploding price growth, and/or to disqualify economists from polite company. But at the start of 2024, with most rich economies in the grip of disinflation, Team Transitory are back and doing a victory lap.

“We’re at a place where we in Team Transitory can rightly claim victory,” Joseph Stiglitz wrote