Global Distress 3.0 Looms as Emerging Markets Falter

The global economy is facing its third major brake on expansion in five years as emerging markets slow from China to Brazil, provoking debate about how much policy makers should respond.

Three years after industrializing nations led the world out of the U.S. mortgage meltdown-induced recession, the reliability of the power source is waning as Europe’s debt crisis persists. The International Monetary Fund sees them growing an average 5.8 percent in the half-decade through 2016, almost two percentage points less than the five years before the 2009 slump.