Central banks across swaths of the globe are continuing to raise interest rates in an effort to tame inflation, largely dismissing for now the threat to economic growth posed by the spread of the highly infectious Omicron variant.
A rate rise announced by Russia’s central bank Friday was its seventh this year and brought the increase in its key interest rate to four-and-a-quarter percentage points since March. That is a reminder of how quickly and aggressively many poorer countries have responded to the acceleration in consumer prices, taking steps that are only now being contemplated or enacted in large rich countries. This is despite the new Covid-19 variant raising fresh questions about the pace of the global economic recovery.
