MacroScope

Reuters has just published a poll of economists that shows Federal Reserve Vice-Chair Janet Yellen is the overwhelming favorite pick for President Obama to replace Ben Bernanke as Fed Chairman next year.

The poll conclusions are based on the collective thoughts of dozens of professionals who are not only paid to make these kinds of predictions, but who are also likely to have been in a conversation with people who ought to know.

But it is worth noting one spectacularly wrong call from recent history.

In a similar Reuters poll, this time just days before UK finance minister George Osborne reported that he had chosen Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of Canada, as new Bank of England Governor, the overwhelming conclusion among forecasters was that outgoing governor Mervyn King’s deputy, Paul Tucker, would get the job.

To be fair, that was partly because Carney had very publicly said months earlier that he wouldn’t take the job.

And it wasn’t only the consensus that got it wrong – some of Britain’s most established economics journalists were reporting with great conviction that Tucker would be the next Bank of England governor.

 All data released last week point to a far better first quarter growth in Canada than previously expected, prompting economists to revise up their predictions.

In a Reuters poll conducted early last month, forecasters predicted that Canada’s economy expanded by just 1.6 percent on an annualised basis in the first three months of this year.

But that consensus could prove to be too low, with many now expecting growth to be close to 2 percent or even higher, likely a welcome sign for Stephen Poloz who was named Bank of Canada’s new governor last Thursday and will replace Mark Carney on June 3.

Mark these words. Not only is Britain going to avoid a triple-dip recession, but the economy won’t shrink again as far as the eye can see.

If that sounds ridiculously optimistic, don’t tell the more than 30 economists polled by Reuters last week, none of whom predict even a single quarter of economic decline from here on.

Even the Bank of England, not exactly famous these days for its accuracy in economic forecasting, has said for a long time that a quarter or two of contraction here and there is to be expected. That was underlined by Wednesday’s unexpected news some policymakers voted for more bond purchases this month.

One of two stories will probably emerge from Friday’s first reading on how the British economy fared at the end of last year.

If it shrank 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter as the consensus of economists polled by Reuters expects, or worse, we will hear it raises the disastrous spectre of a third recession in four years, or a “triple-dip”.

If it defies expectations by growing slightly, that risk is averted and the government will say it shows the economy is getting back on its feet.

An unusual thing happened on Wednesday amidst all the shouting over British finance minister George Osborne’s autumn budget update which, depending on who you asked, outlined an increasingly dire or healthy state of the UK economy.

On the very near-term economic  outlook at least, officialdom actually sounded more pessimistic than most of even its harshest critics.

Britain’s independent Office for Budget Responsibility said it expects the UK economy will contract in the period ending this month by 0.1 percent — a gloomier forecast than the consensus of economists polled by Reuters, for 0.1 percent growth.

Forecasts about the future for the euro zone economy are starting to resemble a multiple-choice novel. Are you an economist working for an Anglo-Saxon institution? Then turn to p.65 — “Recession for the euro zone”. A German bank? Go to p.80 — “Happy days are here again!”

That simplifies the case slightly, but there’s more than a grain of truth in it. We’ve noted repeatedly that predictions about the euro zone are coloured heavily by whether someone works for an employer based inside the currency union or not.

In the past, analysts have been reluctant to forecast outright contraction for major economies.

The euro zone economy may be doing far worse than most economists want to believe. That’s not good news for a central bank trying to rescue the single currency through a hotly-contested bond purchasing programme that has yet to get started.

The latest flash purchasing managers’ indexes, which cover thousands of euro zone companies, suggest the third quarter will mark the euro zone’s worst economic performance since the dark days of early 2009, according to Markit, which compiles them.

They predict the economy likely shrank by 0.6 percent in the quarter that finishes at the end of this month.

Some say the European Central Bank will cut rates. Some say they won’t.

The odds that either prediction could turn out to be true on Thursday are more even than since Reuters first began polling on ECB rates in 1999.

Even during the highly volatile, uncertain time that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Reuters polls of ECB watchers always resulted in a clear majority of economists leaning toward one particular rate cut size.

In the Reuters poll taken last week, 36 of 70 economists expected the ECB to leave the refi rate at 0.75 percent, while almost as many, 34, said it would cut it to 0.50 percent.

The past year of forecasting U.S. payroll growth marks a bumpy road of U-turns on the timing of an elusive turning point to sustainable recovery, an analysis of Reuters polls shows.

In early 2011, an overwhelming majority of economists — 48 of 52 in the April poll and 38 of 46 in the May poll — said that turning point already had been reached.

More than a year later, it still seems a way off.

The U.S. economy added jobs at a monthly rate of 165,000 so far in 2012, far short of the 200,000 most say is representative of strong growth in a recovering economy.

The fluctuating fortunes of the British economy in the last year have left forecasters in a fix, unable to make up their minds how much longer the Bank of England’s money printing presses need to roll on.

Forecasting gymnastics on the subject could make many economists Olympic contenders for the gold medal.

Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley and Lloyds Bank are the latest to predict the BoE will announce that it will buy an additional 50 billion sterling worth of government bonds, taking the total amount spent in the programme to 375 billion sterling.