Growth and Geopolitical Risk
The market has once again been gripped by recession fears at the same time that geopolitical and policy risk is flaring up. Some of these risks—like the US-China trade war—are feeding recessionary fears, while others—like the attack on Saudi oil facilities that led to the largest ever daily disruption in oil supplies—have gone almost unnoticed. And this is despite the fact that oil shocks were one of the most common causes of recession historically. Whether this complacency is warranted, and the vulnerability of the economy and markets to this and other geopolitical shocks, is Top of Mind. In this episode, Goldman Sachs’ Head of Energy Research Damien Courvalin explains why the oil market is much better positioned to deal with supply outages today, and thus is a less likely recession trigger than in the past. But the Council on Foreign Relations’ President, Richard Haass, and Columbia Professor Richard Nephew explain why instability looks set to rise in the Middle East and beyond.