"Don’t panic!”

“Don’t panic!” was good advice provided by Lance-Corporal Jones to his commanding officer in the 1970s BBC comedy series “Dad’s Army”. Perhaps it should now be directed to central banks and increasingly jittery investors.

The last six months have witnessed a roller coaster as markets and policymakers have alternated between euphoric optimism and crashing pessimism with bewildering speed.

Many seem convinced the world’s major economies are poised on either the brink of liquidity-induced inflation; a renewed descent into recession and deflation; or perhaps both at different times, with near-term disinflation is followed by an upsurge in inflation later.

But what if policymakers and investors are overestimating the likelihood of extreme outcomes? Past experience suggests outcomes are much more likely to fall somewhere in the middle, as the economy “muddles through”; the likelihood of extreme outcomes being realized is actually very small.