The rate of inflation remains very low in the developed world, despite major easing efforts by central banks, complicating their efforts to bring their nations' economies back to health, The Wall Street Journal reports.

In the United States, the Federal Reserve has a 2 percent target for the personal consumption expenditures price index. That index has stood below 2 percent for much of the past two years and gained only 0.7 percent in the year ended in October.

The consumer price index was unchanged in November from October.

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"Faster inflation is a no-show," Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group, tells Bloomberg. "We're still stuck in a below-2-percent-inflation environment, below the Fed's goal."

However, none of that stopped the Federal Reserve from announcing a tapering of its quantitative easing Wednesday.

In a statement, the Fed's policymaking Federal Open Market Committee said it "recognizes that inflation persistently below its 2 percent objective could pose risks to economic performance."

In the eurozone, annual inflation totaled 0.9 percent in November.

"We're in a world where there's still a tremendous amount of economic slack," Joseph Lupton, a global economist at JPMorgan Chase, tells The Journal.

"A return to growth is not a return to health. There's a long way to go here, which is why central banks in places like the U.S., U.K. and Japan are trying to get inflation up."

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