Survey Suggests Recession Coming Before 2021

A recent survey finds that almost half of American chief financial officers expect a recession by the end of 2019, while 82 percent expect one by the end of 2020.

John Graham, the Duke University/CFO Global Business Outlook survey director and D. Richard Mead Jr. family professor of business administration at the Fuqua School of Business, says, “The U.S. outlook has declined, and moreover the outlook is even worse in many other parts of the world, which will lead to softer demand for U.S. goods," adding, “We’re in the longest growth streak that the U.S. economy has had in a very long time. It’s natural to have slowdowns or corrections,” he said. “The economy can’t grow forever.”

Businesses can also take action to improve the economic climate by continuing to hire and invest, paying suppliers sooner and allowing customers more time to pay, thereby increasing liquid capital within the economy. However, Graham emphasized that companies are unlikely to take such action. “As a private sector, the thinking is ‘I’m going to see how the world is acting and I’m going to react to that.’ They are less interested in seeing ‘what I can do to help my competitors and everybody else be better off,’” Graham explained.

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