Debate: What Will Trigger the Next Recession?

The U.S. economy has been growing since the last recession ended in June 2009, making this expansion the second-longest in the postwar era. But something inevitably brings all growth cycles to an end, causing the economy to stumble into recession. Bloomberg Opinion columnists Conor Sen and Noah Smith recently met on line to discuss the potential sources of the next slump.

Conor Sen: As trade-war fears escalate once again, sending jitters through markets, it’s a good time to evaluate the state of the U.S. economy and how likely recession is over the next say 12 months. At a high level we should be skeptical of recession being imminently on the horizon for two reasons.