on real factors such as savings, investment, and technology as the main springs of growth. Very little attention was paid to the financial system as a contributory factor. Indeed, through the years countless opinions have highlighted that inflation is endemic in the process of economic growth and is accordingly treated more as a consequence of structural imbalance than as a monetary phenomenon. However, with a growing body of overwhelming evidence, it has become clear that any process of economic growth where monetary expansion is disregarded also leads to inflationary pressures with resultant impacts on economic growth. Thus, price stability and monetary policy have assumed increased importance all over the world, in developing and developed economies alike.Yet, the widespread use of monetary policy to control inflation does not necessarily muffle the roars of policy debate. In fact, the extent to which price stability should be deemed to be the over-riding objective of monetary policy has become an increasingly heated topic of discussion. The crucial question seems to be whether the pursuit of low inflation; (i.e., price stability) through monetary policy undermines the ability of an economy to attain and sustain higher growth. A substantial body of research occupies the examination of this trade-off, whose roots trace back to the Phillips curve (1958) which demonstrated the inverse relationship between the change in wage rates and unemployment rates. It was here that the suggestion of a trade-off between inflation and unemployment was first laid. Although the ‘Phillips’ relationship has subsequently been challenged on theoretical and empirical grounds, it continues to form an important locus of analysis and it is prudent to look at in some detail below. The Phillips CurveIt is well known, and generally accepted, that the downward slope of the Phillips curve arises basically because of the presence of money illusi...
