Is global inflation nearing a peak?

Calling the top of the current wave of inflation has been a painful exercise for economists and central bankers, who have been proven wrong time and again during the past year. But data on Wednesday, which showed that some measures of inflation had cooled in the world's two largest economies, was likely to rekindle a debate about whether the worst might be over after a year of torrid price growth. United States consumer prices did not rise in July compared with June due to a sharp drop in the cost of petrol, delivering much-needed relief to American consumers on edge after steady prices climbs during the past two years. And China's factory-gate inflation slowed to a 17-month low on an annual basis while consumer prices rose less than expected. After wrongly predicting last year that high inflation would be transitory, most central bankers, including the US Federal Reserve, have stopped trying to put an exact date on when they expect current price growth to peak.