Nouriel Roubini (born 29 March 1959) is an American professor of economics at New York University's Stern School of Business and chairman of Roubini Global Economics, an economic consultancy firm.
After receiving a BA in political economics at Bocconi University and a doctorate in international economics at Harvard University, he began academic research and policy making by teaching at Yale while also spending time at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Federal Reserve, World Bank, and Bank of Israel. Much of his early studies focused on emerging markets. During the administration of President Bill Clinton, he was a senior economist for the Council of Economic Advisers, later moving to the United States Treasury Department as a senior adviser to Timothy Geithner, who is now Treasury Secretary.
In 2008, Fortune magazine wrote that: "In 2005 Roubini said home prices were riding a speculative wave that would soon sink the economy. Back then the professor was called a Cassandra. Now he's a sage".[1] In September 2006, he warned to a skeptical IMF that: "The United States was likely to face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, an oil shock, sharply declining consumer confidence, and, ultimately, a deep recession".[2] He also foresaw "homeowners defaulting on mortgages, trillions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities unraveling worldwide and the global financial system shuddering to a halt".[citation needed] The New York Times labeled him "Doctor Doom", whereas, in hindsight, IMF economist Prakash Loungani has called him "a prophet".[2]
As Roubini's descriptions of the current economic crisis have proven to be accurate, he is today a major figure in the U.S. and international debate about the economy, and spends much of his time shuttling between meetings with central bank governors and finance ministers in Europe and Asia.[2]. Although he is ranked only 410th in terms of lifetime academic citations,[3] Prospect Magazine, in January 2009, voted him #2 on its "list of the world’s 100 greatest living public intellectuals".[4] In 2009, Roubini was ranked #4 on Foreign Policy magazine's list of the "top 100 global thinkers", and named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine.[5][6] He has appeared before Congress, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the World Economic Forum at Davos.