As conflict in the Middle East continues, the economic effects of the war are being felt across the globe. For businesses and consumers, this means new questions about prices and budgeting in the coming months.
To discuss the ways the war will affect your wallet, Dana Peterson MS’02 will join the UW Now Live, on April 21, 2026, along with professor of U.S. military history John Hall and political science professor Nadav Shelef.
Peterson is an economist who has worked for the Federal Reserve Board and spent 18 years as a market economist on Wall Street. Today, she’s the global chief economist at The Conference Board, a think tank and research organization that specializes in Fortune 500 companies. Her economics portfolio includes analyzing global themes that have direct financial market and business implications, such as inflation, labor markets, and more.
My Chief Area of Expertise Is:
I’m focused on global economic themes and implications for large, Fortune 500 businesses.
On the UW Now Live, I’ll Talk About:
I’ll talk about the impact of the war in the Middle East on direct prices and indirect pricing and the flow-through to consumer inflation. There’s the pricing shock, and then there’s the flow-through to supply chains. Even if the war ended today and the Strait of Hormuz were open, [the economy] could take months or even years to recover.
I’ll talk about which economies are less impacted, because the impact is not distributed equally. I’ll also talk about risk, in terms of recession and what it would take to have a U.S. recession or a global recession, given what we’re facing. And all of that is piled on top of the tariff shock from last year, which is flowing through more materially this year.
If There’s One Thing Viewers Will Take Away, It’s:
How all of this impacts their wallets — it’s nice to talk about businesses, but most of us are not businesses; we are people, consumers. We’re going to feel the impact now, and we’re probably going to feel it for a while, and I’ll explain why that’s the case and how it works.
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For geopolitical content, information on trade, and global forecasts, see The Conference Board. For news, see the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times.
