< The 2015 All-Europe Research Team

Total appearances: 28

Team debut: 1993

Slipping one notch to third place, the position they held in 2013, are Elga Bartsch and her Morgan Stanley teammates. Despite the decline, clients still highly value their “good, in-depth analysis of the situation of the European economy in the past year,” as one investment manager puts it. The economists are forecasting a year-over-year doubling in European growth momentum this year, to 0.4 percent. Bartsch, who works out of London, cites a turnaround in data for the fourth quarter of 2014 in Morgan Stanley’s proprietary model and in the forward-looking components of business surveys, including upward revisions in demand expectations in the services sectors and business expectations in retailing. Further, with the euro weakening, and oil prices, bond yields and bank lending rates falling, markets are experiencing “an easing in financial conditions, which is also supporting growth, and that will likely still have to filter through into economic activity,” the 48-year-old leader says.