Dive Brief:
- Inflation induced by the Iran war has increased costs, crimping profits and prompting companies to scale back plans for investment and hiring, the National Association for Business Economics said Monday, citing survey results.
- Nearly half of survey respondents (48%) said the Iran war has harmed their business, with 44% saying input costs have risen and 24% planning to downgrade plans for investment and hiring, the NABE said. One out of three panelists (34%) ranked geopolitical hazards among their top three business risks.
- “There’s a little bit of caution here, a little bit of resilience, but a lot of worry about what’s happening geopolitically and with costs,” National Restaurant Association Chief Economist Chad Moutray said during a webcast, noting steady spending by consumers but a “wait-and-see” posture among businesses.
Dive Insight:
Anxiety about the harm from the Iran war has cropped up in other recent surveys.
Economists see 35% odds of a recession in the next 12 months, an increase from 32% in February and March, according to a Wolters Kluwer survey released on Friday.
At the same time, 71% of economists believe that higher energy prices will not generate significant or extended pressure on so-called core prices, which exclude food and energy prices, Wolters Kluwer said.
The jump in the price of oil since February will likely dampen gross domestic product growth, Wolters Kluwer said, citing findings of the survey.
“Higher energy costs are expected to offset fiscal support, slowing growth below trend for a time,” Wolters Kluwer said.
Futures for Brent crude oil, the global benchmark, have rocketed by about 49% since the Feb. 28 start of the war, from $70 per barrel to $104 per barrel.
“Middle- and lower-income consumers are really struggling now, especially with gasoline at $4.50-something-cents” per gallon, Martha Moore, chief economist at the American Chemistry Council, said during the NABE webcast.
The U.S. economy will likely expand 2% this year, compared with 2.1% last year, and the personal consumption expenditures price index will probably rise 3.4%, well above the Fed’s 2% goal, according to economists surveyed by Wolters Kluwer.
In the NABE survey, 50% of respondents put the probability of a U.S. recession in the next 12 months at 26% or higher, an increase from 44% of respondents in a January survey.
Also, 44% of respondents said that the Iran war has triggered an increase in input costs for their businesses, according to NABE.
