The apparent stall in the global recovery may be only a hiccup, but it's made the Fed's recent increase in its emergency funds rate all the more difficult for some to digest.

Recent troubles among debt-laden European countries, a crisis of confidence at Toyota, the emblematic Japanese corporation, and faltering consumer confidence in the United States add up to a picture that's seemingly out of synch with assertions of a worldwide economic pickup, and that means global interest rate watchers must keep holding their breath. Central banks usually hike rates when their policy makers are worried about inflation, and while that's a concern that looms just over the horizon, it's a problem most developed economies don't yet have.

But when rate hikes happen, like the Fed's Feb. 18 move, markets react fast. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 100 points in the days after the Fed boosted the discount window rate what banks pay for emergency funds to sustain liquidity in a cash crunch, to 0.75% from 0.50%. A quarter of a percentage point isn't much of an interest rate it's an extra penny for every $4. But when that's the size of a central bank increase in a stagnant economy, even for a very specific kind of borrowing that doesn t touch the ordinary consumer, it's a big deal.

"In some sense the Fed decision to raise the discount rate was a little bit out of step with reality," says Robert Brusca, chief economist at Fact and Opinion Economics. "Why get people juiced up about hiking rates when it's clear the economy is in no shape for it?"

If it's a little early to be talking about a global pullback from the stimulus, it's also informative to see which economies have the most to worry about right now. Last October, markets were ruffled when the Reserve Bank of Australia pushed its rate to 3.25% from 3.0%. It was the first of the G20 group of major economies to raise rates since the world financial system skirted the edge of the abyss in September 2008, and that rate is now up to 3.75%.

Norges Bank, the central bank of Norway, boosted rates to 1.75% from 1.50% in December, the second increase since last October.

Both of these economies are highly developed, but also heavily reliant on exports of commodities to their neighbors Australia exports metals, timber and other raw materials to Asia, and Norway is Western Europe's biggest oil exporter. Rate forecasters say they wouldn't be surprised if other resource-based economies such as Canada, or even Brazil, were the next to increase rates.

"Demand for these resource exports has declined, but not precipitously," says Ross Schaap, director of comparative analytics at the Eurasia Group, a New York political and economic risk consulting firm. "Those countries are at the forefront of nations where you could foresee some need for tightening, because their biggest interaction with the world is through exports."

Fed Chair Ben Bernanke made his academic bones by arguing that governments worsened the Great Depression of the 1930s through premature pullbacks of stimulus measures like low rates and heavy public spending. Brusca says that if any major rate is going to change, it would likely come about from the next meeting of the European Central Bank, which sets rates for the 16-member euro zone, lately bested by deficit crises in Greece and looming problems in Spain, Portugal and Italy. It's scheduled to meet March 4, and while a rate cut isn't out of the question, there's only so much progress to recovery that can be achieved through rate cuts.

"The next big central bank meeting that will pique people's interest is the ECB, when they sit down to talk about Greece Greece is a big deal," Brusca says. "I don't look for a rate cut here, though you may have other kinds of [policy] support. For example, you have Mervyn King, head of the Bank of England, saying the U.K. might need more quantitative easing."

If any rate moves are on the horizon, Schaap expects they'd be more cuts, even though most developed economies have little or no room to pare down, and run the risk of deflation.

"Central banks, in general, are sort of excessively focused on inflation, even as most of these economies face deflation," he says. "They have a bias to be prepared for inflation and they are trying to target price stability, so their bias to action is sticky in one direction."

But if any of the major economies do cut rates, Brusca says it would be a bad sign for the global recovery.

"While I didn't think this would be the case, I'd have to look at that data now and swallow my pride and say any of the major countries are candidates for backsliding," he says.