Emerging markets

An emerging market is a country that has some characteristics of a developed market, but does not meet standards to be a developed market.^[1] This includes countries that may be developed markets in the future or were in the past.^[2] The term "frontier market" is used for developing countries with slower economies than "emerging".^[3]^[4] The economies of China and India are considered to be the largest.^[5] According to The Economist, many people find the term outdated, but no new term has gained traction.^[6] Emerging market hedge fund capital reached a record new level in the first quarter of 2011 of $121 billion.^[7] The four largest emerging and developing economies by either nominal or PPP-adjusted GDP are the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China). The next five largest markets are South Korea, Mexico, Indonesia, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. Iran is also considered an emerging market.^[8]

Terminology[edit]

Developing countries that are neither part of the least developed countries, nor of the newly industrialized countries

In the 1970s, "less developed countries" (LDCs) was the common term for markets that were less "developed" (by objective or subjective measures) than the developed countries such as the United States, Western Europe, and Japan. These markets were supposed to provide greater potential for profit, but also more risk from various factors. This term was thought by some to be politically incorrect so the emerging market label was created. The term is misleading in that there is no guarantee that a country will move from "less developed" to "more developed"; although that is the general trend in the world, countries can also move from "more developed" to "less developed".

Originally brought into fashion in the 1980s by then World Bank economist Antoine Van Agtmael,^[9] the term is sometimes loosely used as a replacement for emerging economies, but really signifies a business phenomenon that is not fully described by or constrained to geography or economic strength; such countries are considered to be in a transitional phase between developing and developed status. Examples of emerging markets include many countries in Africa, most countries in Eastern Europe, some countries of Latin America, some countries in the Middle East, Russia and some countries in Southeast Asia. Emphasizing the fluid nature of the category, political scientist Ian Bremmer defines an emerging market as "a country where politics matters at least as much as economics to the markets".^[10]

The research on emerging markets is diffused within management literature. While researchers including, George Haley, Vladimir Kvint, Hernando de Soto, Usha Haley, and several professors from Harvard Business School and Yale School of Management have described activity in countries such as India and China, how a market emerges is little understood.

In 1999, Dr. Kvint published this definition: "Emerging market country is a society transitioning from a dictatorship to a free-market-oriented-economy, with increasing economic freedom, gradual integration with the Global Marketplace and with other members of the GEM (Global Emerging Market), an expanding middle class, improving standards of living, social stability and tolerance, as well as an increase in cooperation with multilateral institutions"^[11] In 2008 Emerging Economy Report,^[12] the Center for Knowledge Societies defines Emerging Economies as those "regions of the world that are experiencing rapid informationalization under conditions of limited or partial industrialization." It appears that emerging markets lie at the intersection of non-traditional user behavior, the rise of new user groups and community adoption of products and services, and innovations in product technologies and platforms.

More critical scholars have also studied key emerging markets like Mexico and Turkey. Thomas Marois (2012, 2) argues that financial imperatives have become much more significant and has developed the idea of 'emerging finance capitalism' - an era wherein the collective interests of financial capital principally shape the logical options and choices of government and state elites over and above those of labor and popular classes.^[13]

Julien Vercueil^[14] recently proposed an pragmatic definition of the "emerging economies", as distinguished from "emerging markets" coined by an approach heavily influenced by financial criteria. According to his definition, an emerging economy displays the following characteristics :

1. Intermediate income : its PPP per capita income is comprised between 10% and 75% of the average EU per capita income.

2. Catching-up growth : during at least the last decade, it has experienced a brisk economic growth that has narrowed the income gap with advanced economies.

3. Institutional transformations and economic opening : during the same period, it has undertaken profound institutional transformations which contributed to integrate it more deeply into the world economy. Hence, emerging economies appears to be a by-product of the current globalization.

At the beginning of the 2010s, more than 50 countries, representing 60% of the world's population and 45% of its GDP, matched these criteria.^[15] Among them, the BRICS.

Newly industrialized countries as of 2013. This is an intermediate category between fully developed and developing.

The term "rapidly developing economies" is being used to denote emerging markets such as The United Arab Emirates, Chile and Malaysia that are undergoing rapid growth.

In recent years, new terms have emerged to describe the largest developing countries such as BRIC that stands for Brazil, Russia, India, and China,^[16] along with BRICET (BRIC + Eastern Europe and Turkey), BRICS (BRIC + South Africa), BRICM (BRIC + Mexico), MINT (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey), Next Eleven (Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Turkey, and Vietnam) and CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa).^[17] These countries do not share any common agenda, but some experts believe that they are enjoying an increasing role in the world economy and on political platforms.

It is difficult to make an exact list of emerging (or developed) markets; the best guides tend to be investment information sources like EMIS, (a Euromoney Institutional Investor Company) and The Economist or market index makers (such as Morgan Stanley Capital International). These sources are well-informed, but the nature of investment information sources leads to two potential problems. One is an element of historicity; markets may be maintained in an index for continuity, even if the countries have since developed past the emerging market phase. Possible examples of this are South Korea^[18] and Taiwan. A second is the simplification inherent in making an index; small countries, or countries with limited market liquidity are often not considered, with their larger neighbours considered an appropriate stand-in.

In an Opalesque.TV video, hedge fund manager Jonathan Binder discusses the current and future relevance of the term "emerging markets" in the financial world. Binder says that in the future investors will not necessarily think of the traditional classifications of "G10" (or G7) versus "emerging markets". Instead, people should look at the world as countries that are fiscally responsible and countries that are not. Whether that country is in Europe or in South America should make no difference, making the traditional "blocs" of categorization irrelevant.

The 10 Big Emerging Markets (BEM) economies are (alphabetically ordered): Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Poland, South Africa, South Korea and Turkey.^[19] Egypt, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, and Thailand are other major emerging markets.

Newly industrialized countries are emerging markets whose economies have not yet reached first world status but have, in a macroeconomic sense, outpaced their developing counterparts.

Individual investors can invest in emerging markets by buying into emerging markets or global funds. If they want to pick single stocks or make their own bets they can do it either through ADRs (American depositor Receipts - stocks of foreign companies that trade on US stock exchanges) or through exchange traded funds (exchange traded funds or ETFs hold basket of stocks). The exchange traded funds can be focused on a particular country (e.g., China, India) or region (e.g., Asia-Pacific, Latin America).

Commonly listed[edit]

Various sources list countries as "emerging economies" as indicated by the table below.

A few countries appear in every list (BRICS, Mexico, Turkey). Indonesia and Turkey are categorized with Mexico and Nigeria as part of the MINT economies.

Emerging Markets by Each Group of Analysts
Country	IMF^[20]	BRICS+ Next Eleven	FTSE^[21]	MSCI^[22]	S&P^[23]	Dow Jones^[23]	Russell^[24]	Columbia University EMGP^[25]
Argentina	Y							Y
Bangladesh	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Brazil	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Bulgaria	Y
Chile	Y		Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
China	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Colombia	Y		Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Czech Republic			Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Egypt		Y	Y	Y	Y	Y		Y
Greece				Y	Y	Y	Y
Hungary	Y		Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
India	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Indonesia	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Iran		Y
Israel								Y
Malaysia	Y		Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Mauritius								Y
Mexico	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Morocco			Y		Y	Y	Y
Nigeria		Y
Oman
Pakistan	Y	Y	Y
Peru	Y		Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Philippines	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Poland	Y		Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Qatar				Y		Y
Romania	Y
Russia	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Slovenia								Y
South Africa	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
South Korea		Y		Y			Y	Y
Taiwan			Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Thailand	Y		Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Turkey	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Ukraine	Y
United Arab Emirates			Y	Y		Y	Y	Y
Venezuela	Y
Vietnam		Y

BBVA Research[edit]

In November 2010, BBVA Research introduced a new economic concept, to identify a key emerging markets.^[26] This classification is divided in two set of developing economies.

As of March 2014, the groupings are as follows:

EAGLEs (emerging and growth-leading economies): Expected Incremental GDP in the next 10 years to be larger than the average of the G7 economies, excluding the US.

NEST: Expected Incremental GDP in the next decade to be lower than the average of the G6 economies (G7 excluding the US) but higher than Italy’s.

Other Emerging Markets^[27]