Elga Bartsch & team, Morgan Stanley
The five-economist crew directed by Elga Bartsch repeats in third place. “We find the Morgan Stanley macro team to be the best around, providing great insight that most other macro analysts don’t,” cheers one fund manager. In August the London-based group began alerting clients of a “material risk of outright recession” for the euro area in 2012 — a message they are still delivering, although now many other economists and market observers have come to the same conclusion. In addition, “there will be a credit squeeze, but not a full-blown credit crunch; the European Central Bank will take additional policy action, up to and including quantitative easing; and the sovereign-debt crisis in the euro area will continue,” says Bartsch, whom one investor applauds for building “an intellectual framework that helps in understanding the European crisis.”