The R-word is back but only as an extreme risk

For now, fears of a recession are greatly exaggerated. The global economy, America's and India's included, is likely to see a dip in growth, not a contraction. Yet, uncertainty rules high

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Suddenly, the R-word has staged a comeback. As US President Donald Trump's on-again-off-again tariff war holds the world in thrall, some economists (admittedly, a minority so far) worry that the world's largest economy could be headed for a recession. This is a possibility that, ironically, even Trump has refused to rule out, opting instead to say the US must be prepared for a period of pain as part of a "transition." This admission is puzzling, since there is little that leaders, especially in democracies, abhor more than presiding over a recession. The prospect, however remote, opens up a host of questions. Apart, of course, from the tricky question of how and when one should call a recession. Economists may be famously divided on a host of issues, but the one issue they all agree upon is that it is notoriously hard to predict. Recall Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson's famous quip, "The stock market has predicted nine of the past five recessions." According to the US-based National Bureau of Economic Research, the most common crit