—The heavy government debt loads in the eurozone, the chief concern from 2012, remain in place. Many worry that European leaders, facing citizen anger over government spending cuts in the midst of recession, will be reluctant to reduce debt and strengthen oversight of their banking system.
—A dispute in the United States over raising the government's debt ceiling, and dealing with automatic spending cuts, has only been postponed until early March. Even if the ceiling is raised, Republicans in the U.S. Congress will likely demand deep spending cuts as a price for voting to raise it. If U.S. government spending were slashed in the short run, it could slow the global economy.
—A potential conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Iran remains a continuing worry because it could disrupt energy supplies, driving up the price of oil and hurting growth. "That's the thing we just don't have a good handle on," said IHS Global Insight's Behravesh. "People haven't worried about it that much recently, but it's still there."
—Though China will likely continue to help drive global growth, its purchases and investments could increasingly favor Chinese companies, and "foreign companies and investors won't benefit," risk consulting company Eurasia Group argues. "We have to stop treating emerging markets as an asset class for outsized growth," the consultant said in its annual risk report.
—Some analysts warn that the cheap credit provided by the world's central banks has numbed markets to risk and could inflate the prices of some investments. The danger is that unsustainable bubbles in assets like stocks or real estate could eventually form, potentially leading to a devastating collapse in asset prices.
Rabobank's Foley says she fears that all the cash made available by central banks "has given people a license to turn a blind eye to the macroeconomic news."
Eventually, once economic growth accelerates, central banks will have to signal they're getting ready to withdraw that stimulus. Otherwise, runaway inflation could result from all the excess money pumped into the financial system. Yet that might not be until 2014 or even later.
Executives and finance officials arriving in Davos will have to get a grip on an uncertain economy that could end up causing surprise or disappointment. Now that it has dodged some major risks, Behravesh says the global economy might even outperform expectations.
"Is the glass half-empty or half-full?" he asks. "I think it's half-full. But it's nothing to cheer about either."
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AP Business Writer Christopher S. Rugaber in Washington contributed to this report.
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