Former RBA chief economist and now Westpac Chief Economist, Luci Ellis, joins Mark Bouris on Property Insights to unpack how global events are hitting your back pocket. They dive into how the war in the Middle East and disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz are affecting oil prices, why that flows so quickly into petrol, building materials and everyday costs, and how all of this feeds directly into inflation and RBA rate decisions.
Luci explains how Westpac actually builds its inflation and interest rate models, what makes their approach different to the RBA’s, and why their team moved to forecast five hikes in total. She breaks down the real channels the RBA relies on to slow spending, from mortgage pressure on households to the way higher rates push up the Aussie dollar and change what we pay for imported goods.
