Who Will Pay for Tariffs? Businesses’ Expectations about Costs and Prices

Philippe Andrade, Alexander Dietrich, John Leer, Xiao Lin, Raphael Schoenle, Jenny Tang and Egon Zakrajšek ()

No 25-13, Current Policy Perspectives from Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

Abstract: Amid evolving global trade policy and rising tariff uncertainty, understanding how small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) form expectations about future costs and adjust their pricing is critical for assessing how the recently imposed tariffs on US imports could impact consumer prices. To that end, we analyze several waves of a survey of owners and other decision-makers at a nationally representative sample of US SMBs, defined as companies that employ 500 or fewer workers. We focus on waves conducted during the period of December 2024 to August 2025.

Keywords: business expectations; surveys; tariffs; cost pass-through; inflation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C83 E31 F13 F14 F40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 8
Date: 2025-09-29
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