Inflation has risen so fast it’s even surprised central banks. Can they do anything to bring it down?

Aug 10, 2022

The need for central banks to act is becoming more urgent as inflation climbs to multi-decade highs. Image: Unsplash/Dmitry Demidko

Tobias Adrian

Senior Vice President, Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Christopher Erceg

Deputy director, Monetary and Capital Markets Department, IMF

Fabio M. Natalucci

Deputy Director of the Monetary and Capital Markets Department, IMF

Our Impact

The Big Picture

Explore and monitor how Financial and Monetary Systems is affecting economies, industries and global issues

Crowdsource Innovation

Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale

Stay up to date:

Financial and Monetary Systems

Forward implied path of one-year real rates, to tame inflation. Image: Bloomberg Finance LP, IMF Yield Curve Manager

Discover

Beyond GDP: read the full transcript here

Inflation percentage over the coming 5 years.

Markets signal a high probability of inflation rates of over 3 percent persisting in coming years in the United States, euro area and the United Kingdom. Image: IMF staff calculations

Rate of inflation expected by respondents in the United States and Germany in the next year.

Consumers and businesses have also become increasingly concerned about upside inflation. Image: University of Michigan, Bundesbank consumer surveys

Have you read?

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.