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hf's avatar

It’s a good point on the size of goods imports, though there’s also goods that underly service businesses that aren’t included there?

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RepoInsight's avatar

That is correct. Imported goods that are used in the services industry could lead to higher services prices. There are definitely knock-on effects. It is tough to say how large these effects are.

For example, roughly 50% of the core inflation calculation is shelter inflation. Will shelter inflation rise if imported goods prices rise? I have not tested this, but I would expect the impact to be modest.

I would expect shelter inflation (rent prices) to be largely driven by house prices with a multi-month lag and house prices to be mainly driven by interest rates. So 50% of the core inflation basket, i.e., shelter, would probably not be impacted heavily by tariffs on imported goods.

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