TOMORROW, we will learn what the Federal Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve has made of the past month's worth of economic data, and what action, if any, it has decided to take. Ahead of the occasion, Paul Krugman revisits Ben Bernanke's thoughts on Bank of Japan policy, circa 1999:

A problem with the current BOJ policy, however, is its vagueness. What precisely is meant by the phrase “until deflationary concerns subside”? Krugman (1999) and others have suggested that the BOJ quantify its objectives by announcing an inflation target, and further that it be a fairly high target. I agree that this approach would be helpful, in that it would give private decision-makers more information about the objectives of monetary policy. In particular, a target in the 3-4% range for inflation, to be maintained for a number of years, would confirm not only that the BOJ is intent on moving safely away from a deflationary regime, but also that it intends to make up some of the “price-level gap” created by eight years of zero or negative inflation.

It's worth clicking over the read the whole excerpt. Then contrast that with Mr Bernanke's comments ten years later:

The public's understanding of the Federal Reserve's commitment to price stability helps to anchor inflation expectations and enhances the effectiveness of monetary policy, thereby contributing to stability in both prices and economic activity. Indeed, the longer-run inflation expectations of households and businesses have remained very stable over recent years. The Federal Reserve has not followed the suggestion of some that it pursue a monetary policy strategy aimed at pushing up longer-run inflation expectations. In theory, such an approach could reduce real interest rates and so stimulate spending and output. However, that theoretical argument ignores the risk that such a policy could cause the public to lose confidence in the central bank's willingness to resist further upward shifts in inflation, and so undermine the effectiveness of monetary policy going forward. The anchoring of inflation expectations is a hard-won success that has been achieved over the course of three decades, and this stability cannot be taken for granted. Therefore, the Federal Reserve's policy actions as well as its communications have been aimed at keeping inflation expectations firmly anchored.

That was an answer the chairman gave in December, to the question of why the Fed hasn't set an explicit 3% inflation target as a response to the ongoing shortfall in economic activity. Let me highlight one sentence in particular:

Therefore, the Federal Reserve's policy actions as well as its communications have been aimed at keeping inflation expectations firmly anchored.

It would seem that the Fed's aim is terrible:

Now, in fairness to Mr Bernanke, his previous policy advice came in the context of almost a decade of deflationary pressure in Japan, while the American disinflation is only two years old. Of course, as James Bullard, president of the St. Louis Fed, recently noted in a paper on the subject, the deflationary equilibrium can be a very difficult one to escape.

I don't know quite what to expect from the Fed this week, and I can't claim to have any understanding of the decisions that have been made so far. I'm sure that the FOMC is doing what it thinks is best. But I do know that Mr Bernanke was appointed—and reappointed—based in large part on his highly touted academic work on countercyclical monetary policy. And for now he is ignoring that work and failing at his stated aims. And that is a problem.