The world’s top central bankers stressed the need to keep interest rates high until inflation is contained — and wrestled with deeper economic shifts that will make their jobs harder.
At an annual Federal Reserve gathering in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, keynote speeches from Fed Chair Jerome Powell and European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde on Friday laid out the challenges each is facing in deciding if they should extend historic strings of rate increases that began last year. At the same time, they offered investors few clues as to whether they would in fact do so in the coming months.
Appearing on a Saturday panel at the confab, hosted by the Kansas City Fed in the heart of Grand Teton National Park, Bank of England Deputy Gov. Ben Broadbent said U.K. rates may have to rise further, while Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda reaffirmed the ongoing need for low rates there.