Economic Commentary

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

(with Philippe Andrade, John Leer, Xiao Lin, Raphael S. Schoenle, Jenny Tang, and Egon Zakrajšek)

(Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Current Policy Perspectives  13:2025)

Effects of Tariff Uncertainty on the Outlook of Small and Medium-sized Businesses 

(with Philippe Andrade, Sophie Handley, John Leer, Raphael S. Schoenle, Jenny Tang, and Egon Zakrajšek)

(Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Current Policy Perspectives  12:2025)

Small and Medium-sized Businesses’ Expectations Concerning Tariffs, Costs, and Prices 

(with Philippe Andrade, John Leer, Raphael S. Schoenle, Jenny Tang, and Egon Zakrajšek)

(Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Current Policy Perspectives  7:2025)

Consumer expectations, natural disasters, and stock market participation 

(with John Leer and Raphael S. Schoenle)

(Danmarks Nationalbank Economic Memo Nr. 9, 2024)

We quantify consumers’ expectations about natural disasters in an international survey. Consumers across several countries expect the likelihood of natural disasters to increase over the next few decades. What’s more, national differences in disaster expectations correlate with the heterogenous risk exposure of individual countries. Finally, we show that for high-income consumers, higher subjective disaster expectations correlate with a lower likelihood of stock market participation. This may raise the demand for safe assets and potentially weigh on the natural rate of interest in the future 

Expected Post-Pandemic Consumption and Scarred Expectations from COVID-19 

(with Edward S. Knotek, Michael McMain, Raphael S. Schoenle, Kristian O Myrseth, and Michael Weber)

(Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Economic Commentary 11:2021)

The COVID-19 vaccination drive raises questions about the trajectory of the economic recovery and the pandemic’s impact on consumers’ longer-term behaviors. In this Commentary, we examine the evolution of consumers’ expectations for their post-crisis spending on services that have been dramatically curtailed by the pandemic: visiting restaurants, bars, and hotels, using public transportation, and attending crowded events. We document a U-shaped pattern of expected future use of these services, with growing pessimism in summer 2020 that had largely reversed by fall 2020—for most groups. More recently, higher-income individuals have indicated that they expect to sharply increase their use of these services compared with their pre-pandemic behaviors, but there has been a notable scarring of expectations among older Americans. 

Consumers and COVID-19: Survey Results on Mask-Wearing Behaviors and Beliefs

(with Edward S. Knotek, Raphael S. Schoenle, Gernot J. Müller, Kristian O. Myrseth, and Michael Weber )

(Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland: Economic Commentary 20:2020)

Masks or cloth face coverings have the potential to help reduce the spread of COVID-19 without greatly disrupting economic activity if they are widely used. To assess the state of mask-wearing, we surveyed US consumers about their recent and prospective mask-wearing behavior. We find that most respondents are wearing masks in public but that some respondents are less likely to follow social-distancing guidelines while doing so, indicating a potential tradeoff between two of the recommended methods that jointly reduce coronavirus transmission. While most respondents indicated that they were extremely likely to wear a mask if required by public authorities, the reported likelihood is strongly dependent on age and perceived mask efficacy.

Consumers and COVID-19: A Real-Time Survey

(with Edward S. Knotek, Keith Kuester, Raphael S. Schoenle, Gernot J. Müller, Kristian O. Myrseth, and Michael Weber )

(Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland: Economic Commentary 08:2020)

We summarize the results from a survey that asks consumers questions related to the recent coronavirus outbreak, including their expectations for how the economy is likely to be affected by the outbreak and how their own behavior has changed in response to it. The survey began in early March, providing a window into how consumers’ responses have evolved in real time since the early days of the acknowledged spread of COVID-19 in the United States. In updating and charting the survey’s findings on the Cleveland Fed’s website going forward, we seek to inform policymakers and researchers about consumers’ beliefs during a time of high uncertainty and unprecedented policy responses.

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