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- AT THE start of most years in the past decade, the list of worries about the world economy has seemed longer than that of reasons for hope. The first few weeks of 2016 have upheld this new tradition. Many emerging markets are wrestling with excessive debts, slow growth, plunging currencies and rising inflation. China, the world’s second-largest economy, is a source of a peculiarly intractable anxiety. If its growth falters, it stokes worries about the prospects for other emerging markets; if activity holds up, though, concerns shift to the ever-rising debt that makes such feats possible, but not necessarily sustainable. The euro area’s troubles are no longer acute; but a chronic condition with an uncertain prognosis is a hard thing from which to take much cheer.