What is the world coming to?, The Economist is asking in today’s edition. The editorial writer says this is an unusually difficult question to answer at present, as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development implicitly acknowledges in its latest economic outlook, published on November 21st.

The rich countries’ think-tank notes that the world economic recovery is “more hesitant and less widespread than expected”. More ominously, perhaps, the OECD also notes that the risks are on the downside.

The OECD’s uncertainty is shared by other economic forecasters. The International Monetary Fund made the same point when it published its own outlook in September, for example. On Nov. 24th, Anne Krueger, the IMF’s deputy managing director, acknowledged that the upturn in America was not as strong as people had expected, and she admitted that the prospects for Europe were “not that good”. She did, though, note that some smaller economies were doing quite well.

The OECD publishes the Economic Outlook. See also the IMF’s recent World Economic Outlook The central banks of the largest world economies – the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank – give monetary-policy information. The Bureau of Labor Statistics provides a snapshot of the US economy in figures. Japan’s Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Finance give information about the Japanese economy. The European Commission publishes euro-area statistics and background information on economic policy issues.

The OECD acknowledges that most economic upturns are uneven in the months directly after recessions have ended. One worry is that the current slow recovery could be blown off course by unexpected events. Another concern for the OECD is whether policymakers can deliver the economic reforms needed to establish sustainable growth more firmly. The IMF’s Ms Krueger is certainly keen to see Japan and Europe do more to promote faster growth “because that would be good for everybody, including the United States”.

Another concern for the OECD is a particularly unusual feature of the rather weak pick-up in activity this year: the coincident fall in share prices around the world. Equity markets have continued to weaken even as most economists concluded that the worst was over in America and Europe. In America, the drop in share prices since the recovery began at the turn of this year is the first such fall in any of the 18 economic recoveries since 1912.

That is more than just another interesting statistic. Falling share prices undermine corporate and individual wealth and could in turn weaken economic activity. Business investment is already weak – the accounting and other corporate scandals in America have done little to help there – and if consumers start to lose heart as well, recovery could stall, and might even go into reverse.

Another unusual feature of the global recovery, which follows the first worldwide downturn for more than a decade, is its apparently divergent nature. The OECD does not think this is a cyclical phenomenon – simply a matter of different regions being at different stages of recovery. It reckons that structural differences explain the different pace of the upturn in different parts of the world – and that, in particular, the potential for future growth in America is considerably greater than in other parts of the world. If this analysis is right, policymakers in Europe and Japan should be worried.

They are, of course. In the case of Japan – the industrial economy facing the greatest crisis – they are both worried and, as yet, incapable of the tough decisions needed to deliver reforms that are now long overdue. In Europe, governments are slowly waking up to the challenges which face them, and realizing how much time they have lost. Policymakers in the euro area find themselves constrained by the fiscal deficits that make it difficult to inject stimulus into their economies. At the same time, they are under pressure from the stability and growth pact to take action to reduce those deficits. The OECD report gently points out that the difficulties now reflect missed opportunities to put houses in order in the boom years of the 1990s.

Of course, America too has seen its public finances deteriorate—those projections of huge budget surpluses far into the future that President George Bush inherited when he took office in 2001 have long disappeared. They have been replaced by deficits almost as far as the eye can see: Bush’s tax cut, the jump in military spending and the economic downturn have all played their part. The rising deficits have also provided a big fiscal stimulus for America’s economy, though. And at the same time, the Federal Reserve has been slashing interest rates to keep monetary policy as loose as possible. In passing, the OECD comments that upward risks—and with them, the possibility of higher inflation—should not be completely ignored after such a monetary (and fiscal) relaxation.