Summers: Recession Prospects ‘Looking Much More Real to Markets’ – It’s ‘Two in Three or Three in Four’

During an interview aired on Friday’s edition of Bloomberg’s “Wall Street Week,” economist, Harvard Professor, Director of the National Economic Council under President Barack Obama, and Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton Larry Summers stated that the odds are “probably two in three or three in four that we will have a recession that will start sometime within the next two years.” And that the “prospect of recession is looking much more real to markets” than it was a few months prior.

Summers stated, “[T]here’s never been a moment when we had unemployment below 4 and inflation above 4 when we avoided having a recession within the next two years. And that just goes to show the huge difficulty of the task that is before the Fed. My own judgment is that it’s distinctly more likely than not, probably two in three or three in four that we will have a recession that will start sometime within the next two years.”

He also said, “I think that the prospect of recession is looking much more real to markets right now than it was a few months ago. You see that in the way in which certain retail stocks have been hammered. You see that in the way some credit spreads have widened. And you see it in the behavior of the overall market.”

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