Tariffs hurt 73 percent of affected US firms, researchers find
US firms absorb part of tariff costs through lower margins, according to research published by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) on October 19, 2026. Export controls spur domestic technology development, while Russia sanctions redirect business.
Three instruments, different corporate responses
Among US firms affected by tariffs, 73 percent report negative effects; 58 percent of those negatively affected cite higher input prices.
Firms pass some costs to customers and absorb others through lower margins, while some domestic competitors gain sales and profitability.
Nearly 40 percent of firms targeted by export controls report increasing research and development.
Among Chinese transcripts reporting this increase, 66 percent cite developing domestic core technologies.
Sanctions on Russia impose revenue and asset losses on firms in sanctioning countries, while some Chinese and Indian firms gain business displaced by restrictions.
European firms report energy costs; some US suppliers benefit from replacing Russian energy.
Corporate explanations become structured data
Christopher Clayton, Antonio Coppola, Vanessa Hu, Matteo Maggiori, Jesse Schreger and Serdil Tinda analyze approximately 624,000 transcripts from 22,000 firms over 2008–2026.
Large language models identify exposure, corporate responses and stated reasons.
The authors measure managers' own causal attributions, not econometrically identified causal effects.
Checks against export-control lists, geographic revenues and analyst reports support the measures, while comparisons across four models reveal classification disagreements.
Reported mechanisms, not causal proof
The authors distinguish corporate explanations from verified causal effects.
They identify strategic disclosure, coverage biased toward large listed firms and model classification errors as limitations.
Analyst-report comparisons produce similar patterns but do not eliminate these concerns.
Source: Geoeconomic pressure
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