Economist admits 'he was wrong' about Y2K recession

One of the leading Year 2000 gurus admitted this week he was wrong when he predicted the millennium bug was fairly certain to cause a global recession.

Deutsche Bank chief economist Ed Yardeni, who previously said the odds of a global recession versus economic expansion were 70-30 in favour of recession, completely reversed his estimates today to 30-70.

"I concede that I was wrong about a Y2K global downturn," said Yardeni.

He said he was "impressed and pleased" by the smooth transition into 2000 so far and that there had been no significant Y2K problems around the world.

"As a result, the risk of disruption to global supply chains, which has been my number one concern, is low now," added Yardeni, although he did say that some systems might still experience malfunctions and failures in coming weeks.

"The IT community deserves most of the credit for the uneventful century date change," said Yardeni.

He added that he had no regrets about his efforts to raise awareness over the millennium bug. "I believe that Y2K was a big problem," he added. "Hopefully in the next few weeks we will find that it has been mostly fixed."