By Alec Hogg
The programme has changed a little but for most of the past decade, the key session on Davos’s opening day focused on the Global Economic Outlook. In 2007, this hour-long debate between five of the world’s pre-eminent economists would spark the elevation of NYU Professor Nouriel Roubini to guru status. I took detailed notes and have referred back to them often.
Laura Tyson, Economics Prof from Berkley, California chaired the panel, reflecting the consensus with her view that the US’s “not too hot, not too cold” economic performance would continue: “With the rebalancing going on, with the world having absorbed high oil prices, with the promising signs of a change in China – all of these things suggest another Goldilocks year.” She was supported by Jacob Frenkel, former Governor of the Bank of Israel and at the time vice chairman of AIG, a company the world would soon know plenty about. Ditto Indian Planning Commission director Montek Ahluwalia and former President of the Bank of China, Chi Min.
These four chuckled at Roubini, the odd-man-out whose warnings were to earn him the moniker “Dr Doom”. Continuing with the Goldilocks theme, Roubini spoke of her being threatened by three ugly bears (a house price bubble; a sub-prime problem; a high oil price) – warning that “there are meaningful risks that the US economy is going to end up in a hard landing”.
In conjunction with BrightRock, we have taken to sharing the stories from our recently published World Economic Forum starter pack PDF ‘A Veterans Guide to Surviving Davos’ with you – Follow the link to download the full document.
