We discuss how the long-term relationship between economic
growth and stock returns is influenced by several factors, including the
composition of—and capital claims on—a country’s GDP growth, how
a country’s actual growth compares to prior market expectations, and,
most importantly, the price investors pay for that expected growth
at any given time. Looking back over the past ten years, emerging
markets investors were rewarded for the risk they bore not because of
high economic growth per se, but rather because of comparatively low
equity valuations in the early 2000s coupled with consistently higherthan-
expected economic growth throughout the period. As of year-end
2009, market valuations and consensus GDP growth expectations for
emerging markets are higher than they were ten years ago.