The impact of Covid-19 on Businesses’ Expectations: Evidence from the Decision Maker Panel

The prospects for the economy depend crucially on the spending decisions that households and businesses make. Those decisions may depend, not just on their views on the most likely future outcome, but also on the degree of uncertainty around their expectations. Measuring and understanding those expectations is therefore very important for economic policymakers. This article uses data from the Decision Maker Panel (DMP) Survey to show how the spread of Covid-19 and the measures to contain it have affected the expectations of businesses.