Unfortunately, this answer begs the question, because it fails to identify a target of any known achievable consequence. In different countries, at different times, the survey will yield different results. In some countries, households and businesses have lived very comfortably with double-digit rates of inflation. In others, the slightest hint of price rises causes households and businesses to rearrange their decisions. Therefore, policy makers need objective quantifiable measures of price stability to guide them in achieving this goal.
Price stability is when prices fluctuate within some socially acceptable range or narrow band.
This implies, however, that the general level of prices is free to fall as well as rise and that a prolonged or severe deflation is just as bad as a prolonged or severe inflation. Price Instability Price instability is when prices fluctuate outside the socially acceptable range. Fifty years later, the U.S. economy appears poised to achieve this benchmark.