by Donatella Saccone, University of Turin and OEET
The concept of emerging economies, largely used in the economic literature since the ’80s, is often adopted without referring to a precise definition. Indeed, apart from some solitary attempts, international organizations, financial analysts and scholars have rarely tried to define what they mean by the term “emerging economies”.
Since emerging economies constitute its main field of investigation, it is imperative for OEET to launch a debate on this concept and collect here some early contributions aiming to define this category of economies from a conceptual, historical and empirical point of view.
This number of Emerging Economies then represents a first attempt to join the individual efforts and reach, over the course of time, a shared definition of what emerging economies are. This attempt will be followed by a second initiative, that will materialize next May in the 4th OEET Workshop.
In this number of Emerging Economies, starting from the genealogy of the concept, Julien Vercueil discusses the nature and future of emerging economies. To follow, the second note, by Donatella Saccone, proposes an empirical definition of emerging economies and applies it to the period 2000-15. Vittorio Valli examines the main reasons which historically have led some countries to emerge, focalizing on five Asian economies. Finally, Wladimir Andreff gathers a sample of new emerging countries, selected on the basis of their outward foreign direct investment.
