Financial markets are again having jitters about economic turbulence in some emerging markets, notably Argentina — and fretting about contagion. Such fears are understandable, given painful precedents, but they risk confusing short-term volatility with a long-term trajectory of powerful growth.

New McKinsey research explores how nearly one in four emerging economies has achieved rapid and consistent growth over long periods. These “outperformers” have found the recipe for relative stability, collectively accounting for 29 per cent of global trade in goods, 24 per cent of global trade in services. They drove half of all consumption growth from emerging economies over the past two decades. They — and other emerging economies that emulate them — can continue to serve as the engine of global growth in the years ahead, and their highly competitive top companies will continue to give western incumbents a run for their money.

We examined the long-term record of gross domestic product per capita growth in 71 emerging economies and found that seven — China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand — had achieved annual average growth of at least 3.5 per cent over half a century to 2016. In 11 others, GDP per capita grew by at least 5 per cent for 20 years from 1996 to 2016. Many of these economies have already showed resilience by recovering quickly from the 1997 Asian crisis. They also withstood the 2008 crash reasonably well.