Mary Amiti and coauthors argue in Liberty Street Economics that U.S. firms and consumers bore most tariff costs

Mary Amiti and coauthors argue in Liberty Street Economics that U.S. firms and consumers bore most tariff costs

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Liberty Street Economics published this analysis on February 12, 2026, by Mary Amiti, Chris Flanagan, Sebastian Heise, and David E. Weinstein. Using import data through November 2025, the authors estimate that U.S. firms and consumers bore nearly 90 percent of the tariffs’ economic burden. They call the division of tariff costs between foreign exporters and domestic importers “tariff incidence”: exporters can bear some of the cost by lowering their prices, while U.S. importers pay duties. The authors estimate that U.S. importers bore 94 percent of the tariff incidence from January through August, and 86 percent in November. They say the larger exporter share late in the year means tariff pass-through to U.S. import prices declined, but U.S. firms and consumers still bore most of the burden. Their analysis estimates changes in foreign export prices using import prices, proxied by unit values, and finds that importers shifted supply chains as tariff-inclusive prices rose. The authors conclude that U.S. firms and consumers continued to bear the bulk of the economic burden of the high tariffs imposed in 2025. The estimates cover data through November; how the incidence changed afterward is not established here.

Publication: 5786b039-72af-628c-d24d-47e5fdd637b6

attribution — pass: The reading correctly credits Mary Amiti, Chris Flanagan, Sebastian Heise and David E. Weinstein, publishing in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Liberty Street Economics. It keeps the findings as the authors' estimates. It does not draw on the reader comments below the post.

Mary Amiti, Chris Flanagan, Sebastian Heise, and David E. Weinstein

summary — pass: The summary leads with the actors and the finding, and it explains tariff incidence in plain language. It reports the 94 percent and 86 percent figures and keeps the November data limit. Pass-through is understandable in context. One small softening: the summary says the analysis 'finds' supply chains shifted, while the source says this is 'as suggested by' its charts. The smallest repair is to write 'suggests' instead of 'finds'. This does not prevent a reader from understanding the piece.

These higher import prices caused firms to reorganize supply chains, as suggested by the findings presented in the two charts above.

date — pass: The originalPublished value, 2026-02-12, matches the post's own dateline of February 12, 2026, and the reading states it at day precision. The page was edited after publication (dateModified 2026-04-07). However, every cited passage sits plainly in the original article body, not in the later comments. Nothing is framed with hindsight, and the reading notes that the text was retrieved later.

February 12, 2026 Who Is Paying for the 2025 U.S. Tariffs?

support — pass: Each claim's excerpt is a verbatim match from the original article body: the nearly 90 percent burden, the incidence table, the definition of tariff incidence, and the supply-chain reorganization. The unit-value proxy limitation matches the table notes. The question about what happened after November follows from the data cutoff and does not assume an answer. The reading invents no benefits or costs.

The dependent variable is the log change in import prices (proxied by unit values), exclusive of tariffs (i.e., foreign export prices).

media — pass: No media was selected, and no verified media candidates were supplied. Leaving media empty is appropriate.