ClaimsNouriel Roubini

“Come 2020, the stage will be set for another downturn”

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

By 2020, conditions will be in place for another economic downturn.

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

Judge at the end of 2020. The claim says that by 2020 the conditions for another (global or US) economic downturn would be in place. Roubini's 2018 argument named the conditions: fading US fiscal stimulus, Fed tightening, trade conflict, high asset valuations and debt. TRUE: a downturn (falling global or US real GDP, or an NBER-dated recession) began in or by 2020, and pre-pandemic data from 2019 to early 2020 show his named conditions slowing growth or creating vulnerability. MOSTLY TRUE: the downturn happened, his conditions were largely present before it, but one condition did not materialise. MIXED: a 2020 downturn happened, but it was driven mainly by an outside shock not among his conditions (such as the COVID-19 pandemic), and his conditions were only partly present. MOSTLY FALSE: no downturn occurred in 2020, but growth slowed noticeably for the reasons he gave. FALSE: no slowdown or downturn occurred by 2020, and his conditions did not materialise.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (4)

  1. E1 Guest Contribution: "A Severe US Recession" Econbrowser · 9 June 2020

    “Another stylized fact of the current recession is its unusual large amplitude. U.S. GDP dropped by 5% in 2020 Q1 (compared to 2019 Q4 in annualized terms) and is likely to drop again by about 40% in 2020 Q2”

  2. E2 [PDF] NBER Determination of the February 2020 Peak in Economic Activity National Bureau of Economic Research, Business Cycle Dating Committee · 8 June 2020

    “The committee has determined that a peak in monthly economic activity occurred in the US economy in February 2020.”

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

    “United States: 2019 2.3 percent; 2020 2 percent; 2021 1.7 percent (0.1 percentage point lower for 2020 vs October WEO).”

  4. E4 The Growing Risk of a 2020 Recession and Crisis NYU Stern School of Business (republishing Nouriel Roubini's Project Syndicate article) · 14 June 2019 Own record

    “And the risk of a US growth slowdown has become more acute now that the stimulus from the 2017 tax legislation has run its course.”

Reasoning

The evidence shows that a US downturn began in 2020: the NBER dated a peak to February 2020 (E2), and GDP fell in Q1 2020 (E1). The IMF projected slower but still positive US growth before then (E3). No independent item names what caused the downturn or shows which of Roubini's named conditions were present, so the evidence cannot separate the true, mostly true and mixed outcomes under the criteria.

Cite this claim

Nouriel Roubini, “By 2020, conditions will be in place for another economic downturn.” (said 13 September 2018). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_ebd757bb69f3, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_ebd757bb69f3

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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