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Summary
  • Mood among professors who took part in the December Sentiment Index poll had brightened ahead of Christmas and New Year holiday season. All the regions saw their indexes of both six-month and three-year economic outlook rising in December, except for Asia-Pacific short term sentiment, which remained unchanged from the previous month.
  • Europe’s economic sentiment indexes inched up despite ongoing economic and political concerns in the continental economy, as well as possibility of a modest slowdown in the UK’s growth rate going into 2015. In light of disappointing TLTRO in December and constantly falling inflation in the Euro zone, the ECB said it would assess whether its current measures are sufficient to bring consumer prices toward its official goal of below but close to 2% and revive growth. In case the bank decides its policies are not enough to end a period of disinflation, that would "imply altering the size, pace and composition of our measures."
  • In North America, the US and Canada’s economies grew more than expected, the recent data showed, with the US economy expanding at the strongest pace in more than decade in the third quarter. This upbeat data is reflected in professors’ economic sentiment, which soared in December.
  • Meanwhile, in Asia-Pacific region, China, the world’s second biggest-economy, is set for a “hard landing”, Japan’s economy contracted more than expected in the third quarter, and Moody’s downgraded Japan’s rating. The RBA is seen cutting interest rates amid slowdown in the Australian economy, which showed the weakest growth since the beginning of 2013. Academia experts’ assessment of the economic situation in the region in six month from now remained unchanged from the previous months, while long-term sentiment index climbed modestly in December.
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