Old habits die hard, and the Central Bank presents a vivid example of such policy inertia. In this case, the potential cost of lethargy could be economic stagnation, higher inflation and a future currency crisis.

But if the Central Bank is nimble, not only will a crisis be averted but the path could be laid for growth in the context of financial stability.

Since the 1990s, the Central Bank has focused on the ruble exchange rate as the target when setting monetary policy. Most of that time, with a peg to the dollar and then a currency basket since 2005, Russia’s monetary policy was determined by the U.S. Federal Reserve — especially after June 2006 when the last remaining capital controls were removed and the ruble became, unlike the Chinese yuan or the Indian rupee, a fully convertible currency.

Once in a while, as in early 2007 and more recently, the Central Bank has purposefully pursued an appreciation of the nominal exchange rate in the theoretically correct but misguided belief that it would help to curb inflation. Instead it became counterproductive, especially when senior officials publicly alluded to the likelihood of a stronger currency. As a result, foreign speculators piled into ruble assets on a one-way (but short-term) bet and sparked a massive increase in ruble liquidity and ultimately even higher inflation.

The country was only able to break this exchange rate straitjacket a year ago this month with the 35 percent devaluation of the ruble against the dollar and then a virtual floating of the ruble exchange rate from February to early October. It is no coincidence that this policy change also fostered the long-awaited disinflationary process where Russia started to converge with inflation rates in other countries.

But by the end of this past summer and even before the Central Bank could congratulate itself too much, it suddenly faced an unanticipated quandary. Inflation dropped much faster and farther than expected even by the optimists. This surprised everyone, including the Central Bank. The problem is that after running a much too loose monetary policy for years with significant negative real interest rates, the monetary stance has now become the tightest in the Group of 20 with significantly positive real interest rates.

Even as the Central Bank since April has lowered its own discount rate seven times to reach 9.5 percent last week, inflation has been only a cumulative 2.6 percent since April and seems to be running at a seasonally adjusted annual rate now of about 5 percent. Meanwhile, the Central Bank still rewards commercial banks with 4.5 percent on its risk-free deposit facility, which discourages the banks from providing credit to the private sector. In any case, bank margins on loans are so ample that most businesses cannot afford to borrow.

The fact that Russia has a backward-looking year-on-year inflation rate of almost 10 percent has no practical effect on assisting businesses that have to borrow at about 20 percent or on households that face the prospects of low wage growth. In this situation, the Central Bank’s moves on the interest rate look begrudging and overly cautious unless it explicitly wants to try to maintain a steeply sloped yield curve to help recapitalize the banks. If so, it would be perverse because the banks cannot prosper without a thriving economy.

Making the situation much worse has been the sudden ascendancy of risk appetite on the part of international investors searching for yield and backed by a flood of cheap money as the United States and others have opened the liquidity spigots. All asset classes and emerging market countries have been affected by this wall of money.

With its exceptionally high nominal interest rates and the Central Bank reverting to its old bad habit of appreciating the ruble, Russia has managed to make itself into a prime target. Capital flooded into the country in October and continues to do so. Of course, Russia is not alone, but China and India still control capital, and Brazil has just reverted to controls as well. In last week’s Financial Times, New York University professor Nouriel Roubini provided a detailed analysis of how the weakness of the dollar, along with near-zero interest rates in the United States and quantitative easing, are fueling a growing correlated bubble across global asset classes. The bigger the bubble, the bigger the eventual crash.

Brazil’s situation is analogous to Russia’s, with short-term interest rates at nearly 9 percent per annum and long-term bond yields at 10 percent or above. It is one thing for a place like China, Taiwan or Hong Kong to run large current account surpluses and accumulate large reserve positions when interest rates are no higher than those in the United States or European Union, but it is quite another to commit to a stable, even appreciating, currency regime and free and open capital flows when there is 700 or 800 basis points of positive carry on the table.

In an environment where global risk appetite is once again strong and implied volatility levels have fallen sharply, this is tantamount to inviting a flood of speculative capital into the country when the implied costs of sterilizing those inflows are very high. Without sterilization, higher inflation will result, meaning a less competitive economy and the increased likelihood of a future ruble crisis.

In fairness to the Central Bank, it wants to be cautious. After all, a lowering of interest rates implies a loosening of policy when the rest of the world is beginning to think of tightening — especially when the memories of high inflation are so fresh, and the consequences of the financing of the typical end of year budget splurge are still uncertain.

But in its equivocation, the Central Bank, risks scoring its own goal. Now, Russia has a unique opportunity to use one policy instrument to solve two big problems. An immediate drop in interest rates can discourage speculative inflows by making them dramatically less profitable, especially if the bank makes it clear that it has no exchange rate target. At the same time, it can increase the demand for credit by households and businesses, especially if the Central Bank were to encourage banks to lend by ending the practice of paying interest on its deposit facility. The Central Bank is going to need to learn to live with volatility — in oil prices, the U.S. dollar or capital flows. It will have to learn to be agile and adopt greater flexibility in managing interest rates and exchange rates.

The problem is that if the Central Bank doesn’t act soon, the resurgence of inflation could become self-fulfilling.

Martin Gilman, former senior representative of the International Monetary Fund in Russia, is a professor at the Higher School of Economics.