NEWS RELEASES
Economist Warns That RV Decline May Foreshadow Recession
Editor's Note: This news item was retrieved and first published through the South Bend Tribune's website.
The South Bend Tribune reports that economist analyses find the RV industry downturn which began last June has been consistent over the past year and seems to be picking up steam. Michael Hicks, an economist at Ball State University, told the Tribune that the number of RV shipments “is one of the better indicators of a business cycle that we have.” His informal analysis of previous RV downturns indicates that an annual shipment slide of 5 percent or more is followed the next year by a recession. The RV Industry Association (RVIA) has reported that shipments dropped to 216,581 through the first six months of 2019, a 20.3 percent decline compared to the same period last year.
Officials at RVIA and the RV Dealers Association attribute the downturn to an inventory imbalance, pointing to the exceptional growth experienced by the industry from 2009 to 2017, with more than 500,000 units shipped in 2017, and expect sales to stabilize this year before picking up again in 2020. However, Hicks said, “My models indicated that we’re in a low-growth period. But if I look into the real world and include data like RV sales then I worry whether we’re already in a recession or one is imminent. We’re clearly in an extraordinarily high-risk period.”
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