| Type | Journal article (guest editorial) |
| Title | “Rise of Emerging Economies: An Introduction” |
| Authors | Jaya Prakash Pradhan · George Lazaroiu |
| Published | 2011 · Economics, Management, and Financial Markets, 6(1), 8–18 · Addleton Academic Publishers |
| Read | Publisher page · PDF |
This is a plain-language summary of “Rise of Emerging Economies: An Introduction,” the guest editorial I wrote with George Lazaroiu for a 2011 special issue of Economics, Management, and Financial Markets. The figures and forecasts below are as they stood in 2011.
In short:
- A handful of emerging economies have moved from the margins to the centre of the global economy — the four BRIC countries alone produced more than a third of the world’s growth over the 2000s.
- The shift goes beyond GDP: it is changing where investment flows, how business is done, and whose voice carries in global institutions.
- The story isn’t only Asian — Africa was one of the decade’s biggest surprises, with six of the world’s ten fastest-growing economies.
The great rebalancing
For a long time this was told as a story about “developing nations.” By 2011 it had become something larger: the rise of economic giants reshaping the global economy itself. The clearest single sign is the BRIC economies’ weight in world output, which climbed from about a sixth to almost a quarter in a single decade.
The key figures
The article gathered the headline numbers behind the shift — including two forecasts that were, in 2011, still ahead:
| BRIC share of the world’s GDP growth (2001–2010) | 36% |
| BRIC share of global output | ≈ 1/6 → ≈ 1/4 |
| E7 projected to overtake the G7 (2011 forecast) | by 2020 |
| China projected to overtake the US economy (2011 forecast) | by 2018 |
| Sub-Saharan Africa’s growth, start vs end of decade | 2.4% → 5.7% |
| African economies among the world’s 10 fastest-growing | 6 of 10 |
(The E7 — China, India, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia, Mexico and Turkey — was the grouping projected to overtake the G7 advanced economies.)
The African surprise
While attention fixed on Asia, Africa quietly became one of the decade’s strongest growth stories. Sub-Saharan growth more than doubled, from 2.4% to 5.7%; six of the world’s ten fastest-growing economies between 2001 and 2010 were African; and 27 of the continent’s 30 largest economies saw their growth accelerate. It was a striking corrective to the idea that the rebalancing was a purely Asian affair.
Beyond growth: what was changing
The deeper significance, the article argued, lay in how emerging economies were changing the rules of the global economy — opening new markets for developed-country firms, drawing a growing share of global investment, driving new business models, reshaping trade, and even providing a measure of stability during crises. Four shifts stood out:
| Area | What was shifting |
|---|---|
| Global power | From regional to global influence; coordinating on shared issues like climate; a louder voice in international institutions |
| Innovation & technology | Rising R&D investment; building indigenous innovation capacity; attention to rural and small-business innovation |
| Education & skills | Expanding access to higher education; narrowing urban–rural gaps; emphasis on technology skills |
| Financial markets | Deeper debt and equity markets; new instruments; more sophisticated corporate finance |
The challenges, and why it matters
None of this was guaranteed. The article flagged the hard parts — raising technological capability, improving the quality of education, building efficient financial markets and durable innovation ecosystems, and managing rapid urbanisation. But the larger point was that the rise of emerging economies was not just a change in the ranking of nations; it was creating new models of development, innovation, and global cooperation. The challenge — then and now — is to make the shift work for the whole global community, not just for the economies leading it.
Read the academic abstract
This editorial introduction provides an overview of the topics related to the rise of emerging economies explored in the present EMFM special issue. As the world becomes ever more dependent on emerging economies for markets and growth, their economic and political stake in global affairs can only grow over time. As the influence of these economies reaches developed economies directly — through the exports and outward investments of emerging-market enterprises — it has raised academic and policy concerns in host countries. The informed analysis of emerging economies presented in the special issue is intended to contribute usefully to existing knowledge.Cite this article
Pradhan, J. P., & Lazaroiu, G. (2011). Rise of emerging economies: An introduction. Economics, Management, and Financial Markets, 6(1), 8–18. Addleton Academic Publishers.
