Getty Images, MITAustan Goolsbee says the Fed should wait until inflation actually rises before raising interest rates. Daron Acemoglu says keeping rates so low might pose even bigger risks.(MarketWatch) — A large chunk of the nation’s leading economists think the Federal Reserve should wait until it sees the whites of inflation’s eyes before raising interest rates. But as is often the case with the dismal science, the verdict is by no means one-sided. Some 17 of 42 prominent U.S.-based economists said in a poll that the central bank should wait until core PCE inflation “is clearly rising” before the Fed begins to boost a key short-term interest rate, now near zero, for the first time since 2006. The poll was conducted by the Initiative on Global Markets, a nonprofit research center in Chicago. Among those saying the Fed should go slowly was the University of Chicago’s Austan Goolsbee, who was the only respondent to say he “strongly agrees.” The former economic adviser to President Barack Obama pointedly took note of the frequent errors in the Fed’s forecasts over the past decade, particularly how fast the U.S. economy would grow (way too optimistic) and how quickly the nation’s unemployment rate would fall (far too pessimistic). “Go look at their forecasts for the last six years,” he wrote. “Thank god they didn’t act on those.” Au contraire, professor Goolsbee. The Fed’s GDP and unemployment forecasts have widely missed the mark, but not so on inflation. The Fed’s annual forecasts for core inflation from 2008 to 2014, issued in the prior fall, have averaged 1.61% at the midpoint of its so-called central tendency. By comparison actual core PCE inflation has averaged 1.51% in the same span, not far off the Fed’s mark. For 2015 the bank predicts core inflation will average 1.3% to 1.4% — roughly the same as in 2013 — and then perhaps meets the Fed’s 2% target two years from now. The core rate excludes food and energy because they often exhibit sharp, short-term swings that give a distorted picture of broad inflationary trends in the economy. Lately very low oil prices have kept a lid on overall inflation. Even if inflation eventually rises to the 2% mark, economists who want the Fed to take it easy are more worried about the possibility of faltering U.S. growth. “The recovery is anemic and I am more concerned that it will fizzle than I am worried about inflation,” said Oliver Hart, a professor at Harvard. Although 40% of those polled believe the Fed should go slow, 23% disagree. Nine economists believe the Fed should try to stay a step or two ahead of inflation and avoid the risk of falling behind. Others also warn of the danger of potential bubbles resulting from unusually low rates. “I am worried about misallocation of capital and the wrong type of risk-taking resulting from extended periods of very low interest rates,” said Daron Acemoglu of MIT, noted co-author of “Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty.” Fed officials seem to agree. Top policymakers said they didn’t need to see a increase in core price inflation before hiking rates, according to the minutes of the bank’s latest gathering in March. Most of the economists who say the Fed should stay its hand work in economic departments such as the University of California at Berkeley, Yale, Harvard and MIT that have a reputation for leaning somewhat liberal. Almost all the scholars who disagree with a go--very-slow approach hale from Stanford and Chicago, whose economic departments are seen as more conservative leaning. Yet even those schools show off a diversity of opinion that’s become more common at most prestigious economist departments: three professors at Chicago prefer the Fed to wait while two caution against undue delay in raising interest rates. Read IGM Fed poll here. Sixteen of the 42 professors did not comment or expressed no opinion in the poll.