Forecasting recession and recovery is a mix of science, art and timing

Singapore

MORE economists are now saying that Singapore could enter a downturn next year, as the simmering US-China trade war threatens to bubble over and affect the rest of the world.

But this very group of people would be the first to admit that a forecasting model that can predict when an economic downturn will hit and how bad it will be remains a highly elusive prize. When the projections are wrong, economists are blamed, but it is widely accepted among economists and academics that predicting the turning points in business cycles is difficult.