Nouriel Roubini is a prominent American economist of Turkish descent. He is well recognized for being one of the few economists who foresaw the decline of the housing market in the United States and the global recession which characterized 2008.
Roubini was born on 29th March 1958, in Istanbul, Turkey. He spent his early childhood in Italy, availing his education from the country. After obtaining his initial education from a Jewish school, Roubini enrolled in the Bocconi University to completedhis B.A. in economics. He later enrolled in Harvard University from where he completed his Ph.D. in International Economics in 1988. After finishing his studies, Roubini joined Yale University in an attempt to continue his academic research and began teaching simultaneously. His time at Yale ended in 1995, however, as he jumped ship to New York University as part of the Stern School of Business.
Roubini’s early career was spent analyzing emerging markets and economies which were subjected to macroeconomic failures. These included notable ones such as Mexico, Russia, Argentina and Thailand. Roubini concluded his research with the belief that the current account deficits held by these countries were the key factor behind their demise. It was precisely this theory which intrigued him to analyze the economic scenario of the United States. In his speech at the IMF in 2006, he expressed fears of mortgage defaults, falling real estate values, and a deep rooted recession in the country which would affect markets worldwide, but he wasn’t taken seriously at the meeting. After the event s of 2008, however, his critics were proven wrong, but some of them still continued to doubt the merits of his findings.
In 2009, Roubini expected the U.S economy to start showing signs of progress. However, he was still very skeptical of economists who were predicted full recovery the same year. Roubini expected the economy to stabilize rather than grow, as he still predicted further tremors in 2009 via bank insolvencies. He predicted that the U.S. would enter a mild recovery state come 2010. He was assigned the nickname ‘Doctor Doom’ by the media for his persistently pessimistic economic outlooks. Given the eventual accuracy of his forecasts, Roubini has garnered considerable respect of his fellow peers and features prominently in U.S. economic policy matters and debates.
Roubini’s accomplished professional career saw him work at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Israel. He also served as research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and had the honor of being named amongst Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors, where he assumed the role of senior economist. He was later inducted in to the United States Treasury. Roubini also operates his own consultancy business, Roubini Global Economics.
Nouriel Roubini’s credentials as an economist have been widely acknowledged. The Institutional Investor, a business journal, added him to its list of the 50 most powerful people in the field of finance in 2009. Time magazine on the other hand named him as amongst the top 100 most influential people in the world the same year. Foreign Policy magazine placed him 4th on its list of top 100 global thinkers, and he was honored with Global Thinkers Forum 2013 Award for Excellence in Global Thinking. He currently teaches the New York University.