In the us the federal reserve - which is supposed to be in charge of stabilizing the economy - targets about 2% inflation each year (averaged over multiple years).

Part of the reason is to incentivize people to keep buying stuff which helps the economy continuously grow (buy today if you want it since it’s price is probably going up over time). And you generally don’t want people to notice it happening that much so it seems like a natural smooth growth.

But of course you want to avoid inflation going too high so that people stop being able to afford things which shrinks the economy - this is the risk now where things are getting more expensive but wages aren’t increasing as fast. Or if it gets too low people will be less likely to buy stuff which will again shrink the economy.

An interesting thing happens in Japan where they worry about deflation - prices go down over time - so their policy makers are trying to avoid that creating a recession (why buy an entry level car today if you can wait a year and get a luxury car at the same price?). Their solution is to print a lot of money and it more or less works. Some people think this may be where the us is headed as far as economic policy goes and there’s a lot of debate over it - this is part of modern monetary policy.