ABSTRACT
When one compares the current situation with that of the early 1980s, the dramatic change in the number, geographic coverage and growth rates of stock markets stands out:
e number of countries with stock markets is almost two and half • times the 1985 fi gure (142 compared to 58). Put in another way, a staggering number of countries (84) have opened their fi rst stock exchange in the last two decades.* Almost by defi nition, all these new markets are classed as “emerging”; hence, there are currently nearly fi ve times as many countries with emerging stock markets (118) than countries with developed stock markets (24). So in terms of pure numbers, the emerging markets dominate, whereas in the mid-1980s the position was more equally balanced (34 countries with emerging stock markets compared to 24 countries with deve loped stock markets).†
Turning to growth, the capitalization of emerging stock exchanges has • grown almost 11,000% and the volume of share trading by 19,000% since the early 1980s. is is an astonishing statistics especially when
stacked up against the corresponding growth rates for the developed stock exchanges over the same period of time, which are around 1900% and 6500%, respectively.
