What 28 Central Banks Will Do This Year
Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Dutch finance minister and president of the Eurogroup, center, and Pier Carlo Padoan, Italy's finance minister, left, attend the International Monetary Fund (IMF) governors family photograph at the IMF and World Bank Group Spring Meetings in Washington, D.C., on April 12, 2014. International central bankers pledged to take care in telegraphing monetary-policy shifts and consider their global effects amid renewed calls from emerging markets for greater cooperation.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/BloombergAn already busy year for interest-rate cuts from central banks is likely to get busier. And you might even see some rate increases, too.
The countries poised to raise interest rates by the most this year include the U.S., Brazil, Mexico and Nigeria, according to median estimates in Bloomberg surveys of economists around the world. After keeping rates at a record low of zero to 0.25 percent since 2008, the Federal Reserve is expected to raise its benchmark interest rate to a range of 0.5 to 0.75 percentage point by the end of the year. It will be joined in such an increase by Brazil and Mexico and will be trumped by Nigeria, which will raise rates by 1 percentage point, based on the surveys conducted this year.