Robert Shiller: Good Chance The Next Recession Is Close

Nobel Prize winning economist Robert Shiller says that the long expansion in the economy, housing and stock markets, combined with continued low interest rates, could mean the U.S. is due for a recession. However, he says that human behavior makes it very difficult to make such predictions. The Trump administration and extreme weather events haven't affected markets...yet.

Robert Shiller told CNBC that despite a strong housing market since 2012, homebuyers do not seem as excited. Low unemployment is helping drive the market up.

Shiller also says President Donald Trump and his family's lifestyle might be contributing to people feeling like, they too, can live in extravagant homes.

However, the Yale University economist says, "There could be a change in sentiment toward housing which could bring prices down."

Shiller also addresses housing affordability as a global issue.

Robert Shiller is an American economist, academic, and best-selling author. He currently serves as a Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale University and is a fellow at the Yale School of Management's International Center for Finance. Mr. Shiller has been a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) since 1980, was Vice President of the American Economic Association in 2005, and President of the Eastern Economic Association for 2006-2007. He is also the co founder and chief economist of the investment management firm MacroMarkets LLC. Shiller has received the Nobel Prize in Economics and is ranked among the 100 most influential economists of the world. He has authored seven books, including Animal Spirits, Irrational Exuberance, and his latest work published in 2015, Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception.