Interest rates rise around the world, as war and high inflation grind on | World News,The Indian Express
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday drove up its benchmark policy rate — its third increase this year and its biggest since 1994. Within hours of the Fed’s move, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and others announced rate changes. Switzerland and Britain followed suit Thursday morning.
Written by Karl Russell and Jeanna Smialek
Nearly four dozen countries have raised interest rates in the past six months as central banks in the United States, England, India and other nations push borrowing costs higher in hopes of containing the most rapid inflation in decades.
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday drove up its benchmark policy rate — its third increase this year and its biggest since 1994. Within hours of the Fed’s move, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and others announced rate changes. Switzerland and Britain followed suit Thursday morning.
So far in 2022, at least 45 countries have lifted rates, data from FactSet shows, with more moves to come.
Higher rates are powerful tools for fighting rising prices: They make borrowing money more expensive, which weighs on consumer demand and business expansions, in turn cooling economic growth and slowing hiring. That can translate into weaker wage growth for households and less pricing power for companies, eventually pulling down inflation.
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