Insight - Interest rates are losing their relevance

The three economists recommendations include publicly embracing faster inflation, a notion once regarded as heretical, and steering the economy through the exchange rate. This approach would emulate the Monetary Authority of Singapore, which uses a so-called crawling peg that manages the local dollar against a basket of currencies.

FOR millennia, interest rates have been the primary tool for setting the price of money. They have determined how medieval kingdoms financed faraway conquests and modern nations fought wars.

They affect everything from the cost of food, shelter and transportation to healthcare and government spending.