The survey indicates a strong West/East divide over the economic outlook for the next five years, with the West either having a delayed recovery or stagnation and the East (with the exception of Japan) expected to experience a boom. The survey found that respondents expect stock markets to revert to historical return levels in the next 10 years, while predictions about returns in 2010 are higher than these levels.

The report also revealed that managers expect unemployment in 2010 to remain higher than in the recent past, but improve in all markets during the next 10 years, although some countries will stay fairly high by historical averages. They forecast unemployment to peak in Western, developed markets this year (10.5% in US, 8.5% in the UK, 10.7% in the Euro zone), but indicated that this has already occurred in Australia, Asia and Japan.