Emerging Markets Are not all the Same | NOURIEL ROUBINI BLOG

Monday, February 10, 2014

Emerging Markets Are not all the Same

"The threat of a full-fledged currency, sovereign-debt, and banking crisis remains low, even in the Fragile Five, for several reasons,"
"All have flexible exchange rates, a large war chest of reserves to shield against a run on their currencies and banks, and fewer currency mismatches (for example, heavy foreign-currency borrowing to finance investment in local-currency assets). Many also have sounder banking systems, while their public and private debt ratios, though rising, are still low, with little risk of insolvency." Roubini wrote in a new piece for Project Syndicate.

"Over time, optimism about emerging markets is probably correct," Roubini continued. "Many have sound macroeconomic, financial, and policy fundamentals. Moreover, some of the medium-term fundamentals for most emerging markets, including the fragile ones, remain strong: urbanization, industrialization, catch-up growth from low per capita income, a demographic dividend, the emergence of a more stable middle class, the rise of a consumer society, and the opportunities for faster output gains once structural reforms are implemented."

However, "it is not fair to lump all emerging markets into one basket; differentiation is needed," warned Roubini.

Nouriel Roubini is an American professor of Economics at New York University`s Stern School of Business and chairman of RGE Roubini Global Economics

Nouriel Roubini, (born March 29, 1958, Istanbul, Turkey), Turkish-born American economist and educator who was best known for predicting the 2007–08 subprime mortgage crisis in the United States and the subsequent global financial crisis.

Born to Iranian Jewish parents, Roubini moved with his family to Iran and Israel before they settled in Italy in 1962. After a year at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he studied economics at Bocconi University in Milan (B.A., 1982) and Harvard University (Ph.D., 1988), where he specialized in macroeconomics and international economics. He joined the economics faculty at Yale University in 1988 and taught there until 1995, when he moved to New York University. He also served as a visiting scholar to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), was a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), held single-year terms on the White House Council of Economic Advisers (1998–99) and at the U.S. Department of the Treasury (1999–2000), and cofounded (2004) the consulting firm Roubini Global Economics. Roubini spent much of his early career studying countries that experienced extreme economic failures, such as Mexico (in 1994), Thailand and other countries associated with the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Russia (1998), and Argentina (2000). He determined that each shared one common element: a massive current account deficit.(www.britannica.com)

Nouriel Roubini is the Chairman and CEO of Roubini Macro Associates, LLC, his own global macroeconomic consultancy firm. He is also a professor of economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business. Dr. Roubini has extensive policy experience as well as broad academic credentials. From 1998 to 2000, he served as the senior economist for international affairs on the White House Council of Economic Advisors and then the senior advisor to the undersecretary for international affairs at the U.S. Treasury Department, helping to resolve the Asian and global financial crises, among other issues. The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and numerous other prominent public and private institutions have drawn upon his consulting expertise.