Emerging-market growth from 2000 to 2012 was untypically high. Th is paper highlights the many reasons why emerging-economy growth is likely to be lower going forward. Much of the catch-up potential has already been used up. Th e extraordinary credit and commodity booms are over, and many large emerging economies are fi nancially fragile. Th ey have major governance problems, so they need to carry out major structural reforms to be able to proceed with a decent growth rate, but many policymakers are still in a state of hubris and not very to opt for reforms. Th ey are caught up in state and crony capitalism. Rather than providing free markets for all, the West might limit its endeavors to its own benefi t. Economic convergence has hardly come to an end, but it has probably reached a hiatus that is likely to last many years. Th e emerging economies need to improve their quality of governance and other economic policies substantially to truly catch up. For a decade or so, the West could take the global economic lead once again as in the 1980s.