Australia is being "buffeted" by divergent trends that may present challenges to the economy this year, a leading bank economist says.
JPMorgan senior global economist Joseph Lupton said slowing growth in China, diminishing returns from a low Australian dollar, the declining savings rate and the impact of soft commodity prices on national income could arrest the momentum noted in last week's national account figures. 
"To some extent, I think that Australia is between a developed market and an emerging market," he told Fairfax Media. "You've had these countervailing trends, which are that in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, emerging markets were doing strongly - and Australia was benefiting from that - and developed markets were struggling.
"That's starting to reverse at this point: emerging markets are starting to struggle more and developed markets are picking up. Australia's being buffeted by these two things."
His comments, made during a flying visit to Sydney, came after the release of national accounts that showed surprisingly robust 0.6 per cent fourth-quarter growth in gross domestic product.
This put year-on-year growth at 3 per cent, after an upward revision in the third quarter, from 0.9 per cent to 1.1 per cent. Output expanded 2.5 per cent in 2015, compared with 2.6 per cent in 2014.
The main sour note in the accounts came from a further decline in national income, reflecting the fall in export prices.
This depresses government revenue, company profits and employee wages, meaning the effects of broader growth are not always felt by consumers.
Economists have used this to partly explain the decline in the national savings rate, from 9.1 per cent of GDP to 7.6 per cent.
"National income in Australia is being hit by the loss of the Chinese growth engine and, to some extent, consumers are willing to dip into their savings a bit more," Mr Lupton said.
"I think as we look forward, the Australian economy is going to feel more and more pressured from that reduction in the savings rate, and from the fact that the currency benefits will start to fade somewhat, particularly in areas of tourism and things like educational services.
"As those benefits fade, it could be a question mark as to whether the Australian economy will still be able to maintain this transition away from the mining investment boom."
By contrast, growing savings rates in key economies such as the US and Japan should lead to a pick-up in consumer spending in those countries, he said, which would help global recovery.
He said after a sluggish start to the year, marked by weak factory output, subdued global demand and poor business sentiment, consumers should step up eventually to drive growth in the US and help lift the eurozone and Japan.
These same households had proved reluctant to spend windfall gains from low energy costs, he said, adding that headline inflation was set to rise as the oil price levelled off or started to recover.
"If the story's right, global inflation will be picking up; fears around global deflation are going to fade significantly as the oil price shock from the last six months starts to fade," he said.