As analyzed by Knowledge at Wharton, many emerging markets show signs of a strong and growing middle-class population, leading some observers to wonder whether the term ’emerging markets’ has lost some of its meaning. As the article notes:

“…Initially, the phrase applied to fast-growing economies in Asia and was used in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall. As global interest in market-driven economies grew, investors began to look toward Latin America for emerging markets and eventually at countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, China, India and Russia.

“Once you start to put so many countries in the same category, the category loses meaning,” says Wharton management professor Mauro Guillen. “While South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan share characteristics, once you put them in a bucket with India, Mexico, Argentina, Indonesia and Poland, it’s no longer meaningful. The term ’emerging markets’ has become a victim of its own success.”

…While enormous attention has been paid to rapid growth in India and China, those two countries are nowhere near ready to graduate from the emerging camp, according to Wharton faculty and analysts. While India and China both enjoy pockets of glittering prosperity, national wealth is unevenly distributed and most of the population in these countries lives in poverty.…Countries that make it into the top rungs of economic progress can slip backwards, too. Guillen notes that in the first part of the 20th century, Argentina was one of the richest nations in the world. After decades of Peronist rule and decline, Argentina became a star in the 1990s march toward privatization, only to stumble into a financial crisis in 2001. With a well-educated population and wealth of resources, Guillen says, “Argentina is one of the biggest mysteries.”

Lebanon is another example. In the 1960s, it was considered to be the Switzerland of the Middle East, with strong trade and high per capita incomes before it descended into Civil War, never to recover its economic place in the world.

…Even with their weaknesses, emerging economies are clearly a rung up the economic ladder from many other countries, including most of sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, along with Bangladesh and Myanmar, Guillen says.

…More than a quarter century after he christened the term “emerging markets,” van Agtmael, now CEO of Emerging Markets Management in Arlington, Va., which manages $20 billion in institutional investment, says he has seen tremendous change. “We are in the midst of a huge shift in the global economy toward emerging markets, as many are no longer poor, but are becoming middle class. The emerging markets consumer is becoming increasingly important, infrastructure spending in emerging markets now exceeds that in the U.S. or Europe, and a steadily larger group of companies is becoming world class.”

According to van Agtmael, in the next 10 years there will be one billion more consumers in emerging markets, and in 25 years the economies of these countries will surpass the combined economies of the developed countries.

In recent years, Goldman Sachs has contributed to the economic name game. In 2001, the firm began calling Brazil, Russia, India and China the “BRIC” countries and forecast that by 2010, they would make up more than 10% of global GDP. By 2007, they already accounted for 15%. Then in 2005, Goldman Sachs introduced another moniker, the Next Eleven (N-11), identifying another set of populous countries with the potential to have an impact on the global economy, similar to the BRIC nations. The N-11 are Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Turkey and Vietnam….”