Economists offer dozens of competing explanations, from simple bad management to the grand and pessimistic prediction that innovation has stalled.

We've still got a long way to go so the last thing we need are doom merchants and pessimistic predictions.

Even so, experts continue to fret about trouble ahead - although their pessimistic predictions often sound as if they are putting self-interest ahead of public interest.

Some estate agents believe that prices could fall by 5%; more pessimistic predictions have prices collapsing by a quarter.

That would leave open the possibility that the country confounds pessimistic predictions and turns itself around.

On its more pessimistic scenario, the default rate would hit 18.5 per cent.

They are both pessimistic scenarios, to be sure.

The more pessimistic scenarios include many dystopian tales of human bioengineering gone wrong.

Time had proved him not unduly pessimistic, he said.

Perhaps it would be unduly pessimistic to assume it won't achieve much.

On some matters, including the crucial one of longevity, the actuarial profession has shown itself unduly pessimistic.

Is the book unduly pessimistic?

This year, for the first time in living memory, they were unduly pessimistic.