ClaimsNouriel Roubini

“Although the global economy has been undergoing a sustained period of synchronized growth, it will inevitably lose steam as unsustainable fiscal policies in the US start to phase out.”

Nouriel Roubini and Brunello Rosa, authors, Project Syndicate commentary 13 September 2018 The Makings of a 2020 Recession and Financial Crisis (Project Syndicate)

Prediction Economics and markets

The global economy's synchronized growth will lose momentum as unsustainable US fiscal policies start to phase out.

Unresolvable The public record could not settle it.

Prediction: Statements about events outside the person's control, checked once they fell due: did they come true?

The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.

What would count as true or false

Horizon: end of 2020. The claim is about the period when the 2017–18 US fiscal stimulus (the 2017 tax cuts and the 2018 spending increases) faded, mainly 2019–2020. True: IMF World Economic Outlook (or World Bank) figures show global real GDP growth fell clearly in 2019 compared with 2017–2018 (by at least about 0.5 percentage points), the slowdown was broad across major economies (so no longer synchronized), and it happened while the US fiscal impulse was fading, with mainstream analysis (IMF, OECD, CBO) naming the fading US stimulus as one contributing factor. Mostly true: global growth clearly slowed in 2019 as predicted, but sources give US fiscal fade only a minor role next to other causes, such as trade tensions. Mixed: growth slowed only modestly (about 0.2–0.5 points), or the slowdown was limited to some regions while others held up. Mostly false: global growth held steady or rose in 2019 and only fell in 2020 because of the COVID-19 shock, which has nothing to do with the predicted mechanism. False: global growth in 2019–2020 matched or beat 2017–2018 (setting aside the pandemic year, if growth was otherwise sustained).

Set before the research began.

Evidence (4)

  1. E1 World Economic Outlook Update, January 2020: Tentative Stabilization, Sluggish Recovery? International Monetary Fund · 9 January 2020

    “World Output (Year-over-Year): 2018 3.6; 2019 2.9; 2020 3.3; 2021 3.4.”

  2. E2 World Economic Outlook Update, January 2020: Tentative Stabilization, Sluggish Recovery? International Monetary Fund · 9 January 2020

    “Trade policy uncertainty, geopolitical tensions, and idiosyncratic stress in key emerging market economies—especially affecting manufacturing and trade.”

  3. E3 World Economic Outlook Update, January 2020: Tentative Stabilization, Sluggish Recovery? International Monetary Fund · 9 January 2020

    “Monetary easing in 2019 is estimated to have raised the global growth estimate for 2019 and the projection for 2020 by 0.5 percentage point in each year relative to what they would have been without the stimulus.”

  4. E4 World Economic Outlook Update, January 2020: Tentative Stabilization, Sluggish Recovery? International Monetary Fund · 9 January 2020

    “Broad-based shift toward accommodative monetary policy and some fiscal easing in China, Korea, and the United States.”

Reasoning

IMF figures show world growth fell from 3.6% in 2018 to 2.9% in 2019 [E1], but the evidence does not show whether the slowdown was broad across major economies. No source names a fading US fiscal stimulus as a cause, even a minor one [E2, E4], so the evidence does not settle which verdict the criteria call for.

Cite this claim

Nouriel Roubini, “The global economy's synchronized growth will lose momentum as unsustainable US fiscal policies start to phase out.” (said 13 September 2018). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_a56cd628a0f0, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_a56cd628a0f0

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

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More prediction claims by Nouriel Roubini

  1. Mostly false Prediction 27 October 2023
    “As I predicted in early September in an interview with Bloomberg”

    US stocks could see a 10% correction (predicted in a Bloomberg interview in early September 2023).

  2. Mostly false Prediction 3 January 2023
    “They are talking tough [but if] faced with a debt crisis and an economic crisis, they’re going to wimp out.”

    Faced with a debt crisis and an economic crisis, central banks will back down from tough talk and not raise rates further.

  3. Resolved false Prediction 6 November 2022
    “So it’s much worse than the ‘70s, and it’s probably as bad as during the GFC.”

    The coming stagflationary debt crisis will be much worse than the 1970s and probably as bad as the 2008 Great Financial Crisis.

  4. Resolved false Prediction 6 November 2022
    “So history suggests it’s going to be near mission impossible to avoid a hard landing.”

    History suggests it will be nearly impossible for the Fed to avoid a hard landing in the US economy.

  5. Resolved false Prediction 6 November 2022
    “I’ve made the argument, and this is not the conventional wisdom, that the recession is not going to be short and shallow”

    The coming US recession will not be short and shallow.

All of them

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