Whether or not inflation proves in the end a poor adversary against central banks’ efforts to defeat it, it is certainly proving persistent as a topic of conversation.
Although there is growing consensus that price growth has peaked in advanced economies, and that many of the forces that drove inflation up last year have gone into reverse and are now exerting a downward pressure on headline rates, discussions and warnings about the year head have not ceased.
While some economists envisage sharp declines in inflation in almost all economies in 2023, and at a more dramatic rate than the central banks’ consensus, others warn against complacency and underline the danger that some elements of inflation could prove interminably difficult to squeeze out.