The inflation targeting approach helps clarify the rules versus discretion debate. Inflation targeting works by setting out very clear goals of monetary policy and the framework for implementing it. The framework describes who has what responsibilities, and what accountability and how much transparency there should be. But it leaves to the central bank, to the experts, to actually hit the target, using the instruments the framework permits it to use. Noneconomists often accuse economics of being a purely cyclical profession.
Issues come and go, but they are never resolved.
In the case of monetary policy both of these factors have moved us along, even if we do not yet have final answers. For the industrialized countries, inflation rates were typically already in the single digits, frequently just a few percentage points above the long-run target. So outlining a declining path of target inflation to reach the long-run target range was not very complicated. However, for the developing countries, many of which had double-digit inflation, figuring out how to get rates down to the target ranges was harder. This is, of course, the Japanese problem.