When the world’s leaders convene in Washington for the World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings this week, they will be greeted by a muddled outlook for the largest economies. The US is bouncing back but blighted by polarised politics that could yet extract a heavy economic toll. Europe is recovering at a tepid pace from depressed levels. In Japan, Abenomics is a work in progress.

But leaders will have greater clarity about emerging markets: the party is over. Gloom about these countries’ growth prospects is based in large part on the deterioration in the very favourable external economic environment they have enjoyed in the past decade: high commodity prices and cheap capital. But medium-term emerging markets growth is misunderstood.

Any assessment of the durability of their growth should take account of timing. Many developing countries started catching up with the rich world, and at an accelerating pace, in the early to mid-1990s. But the favourable external environment – the commodities boom and easy money – was more a hallmark of the first decade of this millennium. In other words, there was more to the improved performance than merely a favourable economic environment.