Post-Election CFO Optimism Jumps Despite Concerns About Tariffs, Politics, and Inflation

Data & Results

Dec. 4, 2024

CFO optimism about the economy jumped this quarter, following the recent presidential election. However, chief financial officers expressed post-election concerns about monetary policy, inflation, the political climate, and tariffs.

This quarter, about half of the 515 respondents were polled in a pre-election survey that closed November 4. The other half responded to a post-election survey that ran November 6-19.

News Release

Revisions to The CFO Survey Data

CFO Survey data from Q2 2020 to Q4 2024 have been revised in accordance with an annual revision process. Revised historical data are available for download. Comparisons of revised and previously published estimates are also available.

Historical special question results are unrevised and available on archived quarterly results pages.

For more information on the annual data revision process, please refer to The CFO Survey Methodology.

Special Questions on Policy Topics

This survey also created the CFO Policy Importance Index, which is scaled so that the most important policy issue facing companies has a value of 100. Following the election, regulatory policy topped the Policy Importance Index with a value of 100, followed by corporate taxes, monetary policy, fiscal spending, individual taxes, and health care.

Which of the Following Policy Topics Are Most Important to Your Firm?	Pre-Election	Post-Election
Scaled so the most important policy issues facing firms pre- and post-election has a value of 100. Sorted by post-election importance.	(N=252)	(N=263)
Regulatory policy	98	100
U.S. corporate tax policy	99	86
Monetary policy	100	83
Fiscal policy	74	65
U.S. individual tax policy	70	50
Health care policy	33	43
Energy policy	41	33
Trade policy	32	32
Immigration policy	38	29
Foreign policy	21	14
Other	7	9
Non-U.S. tax policy	3	3
None	2	1
Note: Q4 2024 data in the table reflect results for 252 to 263 U.S. firms responding to the Q4 2024 survey (October 21 – November 19, 2024).

For additional discussion of these results, visit our Research & Commentary section.