Nobel laureate Paul Krugman says global recession possible in 2019, warns 'we don't have an effective response'

However, the world's business elite in interviews to CNBC were split right down the middle with Nobel prize-winning economist Robert Shiller, JP Morgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon and Richard Bernstein, CEO of Richard Bernstein Advisors, ringing the alarm bell. At the other end of the spectrum was Blackstone Chairman and CEO Steve Schwarzman and ING CEO Ralph Hamers who ruled out a recession anytime soon.

The scepticism of Professor Emeritus of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, who won the Nobel Prize in 2008 for his work on economic geography and identifying international trade patterns, is only going to fuel this debate further.

Ruling out ‘one big thing’ that could prompt an economic downturn, Krugman said a range of economic ‘headwinds’ would increase the likelihood of a slowdown. He expressed concern on US President Donald Trump's tax cut stimulus, saying the programme was ‘not very effective’, the report said.

But the key takeaway from his address was the lack of preparedness among economic policymakers. The report Krugman as saying, "The main concern has always been that we don't have an effective response if stuff slows down. The place that looks really close to recession right now is the euro area."

On February 7, the European Commission sharply cut its forecasts for euro zone economic growth for 2019 and 2020 on global trade tensions, China slowdown, slower car production in Germany, social tensions in France and budget policies in Italy.

The Commission said euro zone growth will slow to 1.3 percent this year from 1.9 percent in 2018 and is expected to rebound in 2020 to 1.6 percent. What’s worse, its forecast is less optimistic from its November projections, when it expected the euro zone to grow by 1.7 percent this year.