May 2013 Consumer Prices

Consumer price inflation continued to accelerate in May, rising to 1.8% from 1.7% in April (log annual and monthly changes):

For once, its neither food nor petrol costs driving up prices. This time, and rather unusually, it was a 1.2% jump in house rents over April (2.5% in annual terms). Food prices did increase as well, though not nearly as much. As a result, consumer price inflation in May came mainly from movement in the core index, and not from the usual causes of wallet squeezing.

Given that price data collection is done by survey, there’s a possibility that this may just be statistical noise, but it’s something to watch for in the future.

As a side note, for those who may be interested, the average price of cars is down 0.3% from last year, but the cost of spare parts is up 1.0% and repair and maintenance costs are up 4.0%. By contrast, the price of air transportation has risen 21.5% since last year.

Technical Notes:

May 2013 Consumer Price Index report from the Department od Statistics