AT THE Jackson Hole economic symposium last week, central bankers were under no illusion about inflation. Its threat persists, they said, and its outlook is complicated by structural shifts in the global economy.

Normally, the latter argument is simple to dismiss because officials always complain that their period in office is marked by unusual uncertainty. In 2023, however, they have a point. There are five important shifts happening in the global economy right now.

The first and most immediate is a necessary policy adjustment from reducing inflation to keeping it under control. The rate of price increases has slowed sharply in the US and is moderating in Europe. But Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell and Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, were clear that it is far too early for central bankers to take a victory lap.