Cracking the Emerging Markets Enigma

Forward-thinking investors are constantly looking for the next BRIC-what foreign market is on the brink of expansive growth? Will these investments payoff, or are the potential risks too great? Investing in these emerging markets requires a careful analysis of potential risks and benefits which vary greatly from country to country and even from day to day.

In Cracking the Emerging Markets Enigma, emerging markets expert Andrew Karolyi outlines a practical strategy for evaluating the opportunities and-more importantly-the risks of investing in emerging markets. Karolyi's proposed system evaluates multiple dimensions of the potential risks faced by prospective investors. These categories of risk reflect the uneven quality or fragility of the various institutions designed to assure integrity in capital markets-political stability, corporate opacity, limits placed on foreign investors, and more. By distilling these analyses into a numerical scoring system, Karolyi has devised a way to assess with ease emerging markets by different dimensions of risk and across all dimensions together.

This novel assessment framework already has been tested in the market to great success. Researchers, students, firms, and both seasoned and novice investors are poised to gain a clear understanding of how to evaluate potential investments in emerging markets to maximize profits.

G. Andrew Karolyi is Professor of Finance at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University. He consults for investments firms and teaches executive development courses to educate investors on portfolio management and emerging markets. He also currently serves as executive editor of the Review of Financial Studies, one of the top journals devoted to the study of financial economics.