Is the world economy going back to the 1970s?

IT IS NEARLY half a century since the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries imposed an oil embargo on America, turning a modest inflation problem into a protracted bout of soaring prices and economic misery. But the stagflation of the 1970s is back on economists’ minds today, as they confront strengthening inflation and disappointing economic activity. The voices warning of unsettling echoes with the past are influential ones, including Larry Summers and Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University and Mohamed El-Erian of Cambridge University and previously of PIMCO, a bond-fund manager.