Are emerging economies on the verge of another “lost decade”?

EMERGING ECONOMIESIMF hoping to grow their way into the ranks of the rich have faced a seemingly never-ending series of setbacks in recent years. have together dealt them serious blows. Over the past three years more than half the population of the emerging world lived in countries where income growth, in purchasing-power-parity terms, lagged behind that in America—the first such episode since the 1980s.The forecasts that economic output across emerging markets will expand by 3.8% this year and 4.4% in 2023. Both figures have been revised down sharply since last year and fall short of the 5% average annual rate in the decade before covid-19. As the contours of the post-pandemic landscape start to come into focus, a lost decade for the world’s poorer countries—a period of slow growth, recurring financial crises and social unrest—looks increasingly plausible.