Claus Vistesen
Chief Eurozone Economist
Claus Vistesen has several years’ experience in the independent macro research space, as a freelancer, consultant and, latterly, as Head of Research of Variant Perception, Inc. He holds Master’s degrees in economics and finance from the Copenhagen Business School and the University of Hull.
At Pantheon, Claus focuses on the Eurozone, with particular emphasis on the core economies of Germany and France, and on ECB policy. He is keen to argue that the Eurozone still has a business cycle, despite its manifest structural problems, and that investors who focus only on the long-term fundamentals run the risk of missing significant investment opportunities. Claus also specialises in demographics, growth and the interaction between asset markets and monetary policy.
Recent key calls include:
February 2024 - Correctly predicted a downside surprise in the Swiss CPI for January.
2023 - Predicted the continued tightening spread between BTP and Bund yields, reflecting an overall benign political domestic backdrop even as the central bank’s policy rate was still rising.
Q3 2023 - Adequately predicted that official growth forecasts from the EU in the summer, for 2023 and 2024, would have to come down further. The EC’s forecasts came down significantly in the Winter forecasts.
September 2023 - Correctly called the ECB September hike—based on an accurate read of the Q2 numbers for productivity and wages—which was a tightly contested decision with the consensus almost evenly split.
