TY - JOUR T1 - Are Emerging Market Equities a Separate Asset Class? JF - The Journal of Portfolio Management SP - 102 LP - 114 DO - 10.3905/jpm.2002.319848 VL - 28 IS - 3 AU - Anthony Saunders AU - Ingo Walter Y1 - 2002/04/30 UR - https://pm-research.com/content/28/3/102.abstract N2 - Historically, fund managers and investors making portfolio allocation decisions have considered emerging market equities a separate asset class. More recently, a number of economic, legal, accounting, and financial developments have eroded the root differences between emerging and developed country financial markets. These liberalizations include capital market reforms that have reduced the constraints and limits on foreign portfolio investment. The authors find that empirical evidence strongly supports the view that the world's financial markets are becoming increasingly integrated, and that the integration process encompasses emerging markets. As a result, the idea of a rigid separation between emerging market and developed market pools of investible funds (and adoption of separate performance benchmarks) seems no longer appropriate. Indeed, recent moves by international investors to benchmark their portfolios to MSCI's all–country world index and related world indexes, which include both emerging market and developed market securities, seem a step in this direction. ER -