In December, the Federal Reserve finally stepped up plans to dial back its extraordinary monetary stimulus, and the Bank of England made the first hike of its tightening cycle. But it took many months of rising inflation to get to this point, and monetary policy in both economies is likely to remain quite stimulative for some time to come.

By contrast, central banks in Latin America have been hiking rates since early this year, despite continued drag on many of their economies from the Covid-19