With some economies under siege, deciding how quickly foreign capital could race for the exits has rarely been more important for investors. Refinements in the models used to assess this throw up some surprises.

Sharp falls in the currencies of Iceland, South Africa and Turkey since the beginning of the year demonstrate investors' growing aversion to economies with large external deficits and high dependence on capital inflows. Evaluating this dependence means looking at different indicators - the size of current account deficits relative to gross domestic product, the need for foreign currency to service debt and the amount of foreign exchange reserves. On these metrics, the most vulnerable countries in central and eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa are Iceland, Latvia, Turkey and Romania. Kazakhstan, conversely, does rather well - its forex reserves are triple estimated debt repayments over the next year.

You know, I really would like to see that plot including all OECD countries and not just "emerging markets".

When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes