As for the reduction in aggregate demand, higher energy prices increase the bill for imported oil and natural gas, which can be viewed as a "tax" on U.S. residents by foreign energy producers, thereby holding down aggregate demand. Given the rise in energy prices since 2003, the import "tax" has risen more than $ billion annually.
Although they are imprecise, simulations from the Federal Reserve Board staff's large-scale econometric model, which account for these effects, suggest that increases in spot and futures prices of energy from late 2003 to the present subtracted a 1/2 percentage point from real GDP growth in 2004 and more than 1 percentage point in 2005.