Daily Telegraph: "From Russia's economic collapse, the threat of deflation, and another year of record low interest rates: Here's how crisis beset the world economy once again"

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"2014 did not prove to be the year the world roared back to the path of recovery. Global economic output grew by just 3.3pc, an expansion that was dubbed by the IMF's chief economist as 'mediocre and worse than forecast.'

"The outlook for 2015 doesn't look much better. The probability of the world falling back into recession - defined as GDP growth of 2pc or less - is only around one in 100, but much higher for the advanced world according to the Fund. The IMF thinks there is now a four in 10 chance the eurozone area will slip back into its third recession since the financial crisis next year.

"This raft of bad news has led many academics and observers to put weight behind the theory that the ageing west is now facing a period of 'secular stagnation' characterised by persistently weak demand and almost non-existent growth.

2014 also saw the debate about capitalism and its discontents come to the fore with the work of 'rockstar' economist Thomas Piketty.

"The Frenchman saw his book, Capital in the 21st Century become a New York Times bestseller and generate argument and counter-argument about the dynamics of wealth distribution in modern capitalism.

"The chart above, based on calculations from Piketty and his colleague Emmanuel Saez, has been described as the most important chart of the year. Produced by economist Pavlina Tcherneva, it shows that for most of the post-war period, the income gains from economic expansion went to the bottom 90pc of the population in the United States.

"In the last three decades however this trend has switched to the extent that almost all of the income growth has been captured by the top 10pc of the US population."

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