The ECB's Monetary Policy Is Tighter But the Eurozone's Inflation Is About As Bad as Ours.

Elga Bartsch and Joachim Fels, managing directors at Morgan Stanley, wrote in yesterday's Wall Street Journal: "The main driver behind rising global inflation pressures is well understood: a very lax global monetary policy stance, particularly in the U.S. and in many emerging-market countries. This has fueled higher food and energy prices, and other prices are likely to follow – especially as most central banks around the world are unlikely to tighten policy sharply anytime soon.

"So it is not surprising that inflation is rising everywhere. What does appear puzzling is that, at 4%, euro-area inflation is at about the same level as that in the U.S. and has actually risen by a greater amount over the past year. That's despite a significant appreciation of the euro against the dollar during the same period."

The solution they suggest may be microeconomic rather than macroeconomic: structural reform.