Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

Albania's Viosa River has long been under threat from hydroelectric dam projects. The

halting of a big one shows the growing influence of the country's environmentalists who argue

for far less destructive uses of the river plain. And, loathing across Bolivia's landscape

is one of the world's largest collections of dinosaur footprints. But there are curiously

few bones. We head out with paleontologists to find what could be learned from what lies

beneath.

This weekend central bankers from around the world concluded their annual Jackson Hole

Summit. As ever, most of the attention was on the head of America's central bank, Jerome

Powell, the one speech from the digital conference that was broadcast. He was honest about the

challenges facing America's economy.

These are challenging times for the public we serve. As the pandemic and its unprecedented

toll on health and economic activity linger.

And the challenges for central bankers as they try to address those issues.

If a central bank tightens policy and response to factors that turn out to be temporary,

the main policy effects are likely to arrive after the need has passed. The ill-timed policy

move unnecessarily slows hiring and other economic activity and pushes inflation lower than

desired.

As expected, there were no big policy shocks in the speech. Mr. Powell promised to stay

the course and keep to the previously indicated timetable for raising interest rates and

slowing the purchases of assets.

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