by Kristin Schwab
Market Place
This week will be chatty for Fed officials, with remarks scheduled from Federal Reserve bank presidents, governors and others. A topic that’s sure to come up: inflation and how tariffs might affect it.
In fact, it’s already come up. On Monday, Fed governor Christopher Waller said he thinks tariffs would only modestly increase prices and he favors “looking through these effects when setting monetary policy.” Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee — in previous remarks and on “Marketplace” — has warned that tariffs could increase inflation.
At the heart of the debate is the question: Do tariffs lead to one-time price increases, or do they lead to more persistent inflation?
To predict how tariffs might affect inflation, economist Stephanie Kelton at Stony Brook University said we need to know exactly what the tariffs will be.