World’s Central Banks Tested by Low Inflation

Inflation is slowing across the developed world despite ultralow interest rates and unprecedented money-printing campaigns, posing a dilemma for the Federal Reserve and other major central banks as they plot their next policy moves.

U.S. consumer prices rose just 1.2% in November from a year earlier, according to Labor Department data released Tuesday. The subdued price data came as the Fed opened a two-day policy meeting at which the fate of its $85 billion-a-month bond-buying program—an effort to hold down long-term interest rates and drive up the value of homes, stocks and other assets—is a central focus.

Meanwhile, annual inflation in the euro zone was 0.9% in November, the European Union’s statistics office said Tuesday. And central banks in Sweden and Hungary cut interest rates, the latest efforts elsewhere in Europe to boost struggling economies as inflation remains low.

WSJ

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