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The hazards of keeping up with the Joneses. The relentlessness with which central banks are increasing interest rates reflects alarm at rising prices —and an aversion to being portrayed as insufficiently courageous at a time of economic peril. With so much hiking, officials should fret about the broader impact of the course they are on. The recession they are courting may be no ordinary downturn.

We are experiencing one of the most synchronized bouts of monetary and fiscal tightening in the past five decades, according to the World Bank. While the Federal Reserve may steal the show Wednesday with a third consecutive hike of 75 basis points, rates will almost certainly march higher in coming days in places as diverse as the UK, Indonesia, the Philippines and Norway. Earlier this month, the European Central Bank pulled off its first 75 basis-point jump, and left the door open for more. Sweden's Riksbank shocked markets Tuesday by lifting its main rate by a full percentage point.

It’s the countries that haven’t ratcheted up borrowing costs that stand out. The era of the global central bank may be with us in all but name, as much as policy makers themselves would bristle at the suggestion. About 90 central banks have raised rates this year, and half of them have increased by at least three-quarters of a percentage point in a single bound, based on Bloomberg News calculations. This week’s hikes alone may exceed 500 basis points.

Even the outliers are less than comfortable. The Bank of Japan, which has refused to budge, faces hard questions about why it clings to an ultra-easy stance when inflation has well and truly breached its 2% target. Inflation climbed to the highest in more than three decades last month. 

It’s a brave central banker who worries too loudly about other countries when headlines scream about inflation at home and politicians pile on. Most monetary agencies have at least some autonomy, but they still operate in a political environment. Policy makers face hostile questions in parliamentary hearings and some legislators go so far as to call for resignations. That’s an understandable, if disappointing, reaction when jumps in CPI lead the evening news. If officials harbor concerns about the subpar performance of the global economy — and there are sound reasons to be anxious — they tend to be publicly muted about it.

One person who has flagged the need to think globally is Fed Vice Chair Lael Brainard. While not for a minute challenging the desirability of reining in demand and prices, she did keep an eye on the potential consequences of the global policy lockstep. “The rapidity of the tightening cycle and its global nature, as well as the uncertainty around the pace at which the effects of tighter financial conditions are working their way through aggregate demand, create risks associated with over-tightening,” Brainard said in a speech. A bleak global outlook may also keep the Fed from moving by a full percentage point today, according to Bloomberg Economics.

There’s danger today that, acting out of domestic concerns, the response to higher inflation will ricochet far beyond national boundaries. Because these policies are highly synchronous across countries, they could be mutually compounding in their effects — tightening financial conditions and steepening the global growth slowdown more than envisioned.

A rallying cry for fans of central banks, whenever politicians make noises about rates, is to protect autonomy at almost any cost. But what about central banks being independent of each other, especially the Fed? The impact of the whole may be more consequential — and keenly felt — than the sum of the parts.