Paying the price for emerging market bonanza

New York

JUST 14 years ago, Wall Street fell in love with the BRICs, the tidy acronym for four major emerging economies that, to many, looked like sure winners. Today, after heady runs and abrupt reversals, most of the BRICs - in fact, most developing nations - look like big-time losers.

The history of emerging markets is a history of booms and busts, but the immediate future may hold something more prosaic: malaise. Investors today confront what could turn out to be a lost decade of returns, with four or five more meagre years ahead. "These are very much the lean years after the bonanza decade," said Harvard Kennedy School economist Carmen Reinhart, one of the world's top specialists on financial crises and developing economies.