More than a trillion dollars of investment flows has fled emerging markets over the past 18 months but the exodus may not even be halfway done, as once-booming economies appear trapped in a slow-bleeding cycle of weak growth and investment.

That contrasts with previous decades when commerce expanded at least twice as fast as world growth.

Some of this is starting to reverse as last year saw the first net capital outflow since 1988, a $540 billion loss, says the IIF which predicts more flight in 2016 .

Tran estimates productivity, which provides clues on future economic growth, is growing at just 0.9 percent a year across much of the developing world, a quarter the rate seen before 2007 and not far from richer countries' 0.4 percent.

Emerging stock market performance has lagged developed peers for five years now, and corporate earnings have shrunk for more than four years, Morgan Stanley has calculated.

This is the longest decline in the MSCI equity index's history, MS says, noting the longest prior earnings recession in the asset class was after the 1997 crisis and lasted two years.

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