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By Mike Barber and Sean Liliani

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Thirty years ago, mutual fund manager Antoine van Agtmael had reams of data and anecdotal evidence to show the world’s investors that the Third World was ripe for growth.

But there was one problem — no one wanted to invest in anything linked to the “Third World.”

Mr. van Agtmael, then an economist at the World Bank, realized that another term had to be introduced if the stigma was to be removed. After wrestling with the name for a few days, he finally struck gold with the term “emerging markets” — a phrase that has been used to describe the developing world ever since.Three decades later, with the economies of China, India, Brazil, and others continuing to grow by 6% or more each year, it’s time to consider whether these emerging markets have finally emerged.

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Mr. van Agtmael, the founder and CIO of Emerging Markets Management, believes they have. He notes that the developing world now makes up nearly 40% of the world’s gross domestic product and produces more than half of the world’s exports.