Against a backdrop of the inexorable rise of new economic powers such as China and Brazil, and the prospect of at least several years of anaemic growth and heavy debt burdens across the West and Japan, it is not difficult to see why there’s a sea change in investor attitudes.

The shift is already clear from debt insurance costs and bond yields, traditionally higher in emerging markets to reflect the perceived market, economic and political risks. But this year it is costlier to insure Greek and Irish debt against default than Poland or Brazil, while Japanese credit default swaps, used to hedge against default, rose above China’s at the start of this year.

"This crisis has blown the division between emerging and developed; the underlying rationale has changed," said Phil Poole, head of emerging-market research at HSBC. "Everything I see across asset classes suggests there is a move in train to re-balance portfolios in favour of higher weight in emerging markets."

Data from fund tracker EPFR Global shows emerging bond and stock funds took in a record $75-billion last year, next only to US bond funds. In contrast, US stock funds lost $42-billion. More tellingly last week, as Greek jitters mounted, emerging local currency bonds saw an all-time inflow record.

"I wouldn’t say the problems in Greece are necessarily a direct catalyst, but they have focused attention on strong fundamentals in emerging markets and difficulties the developed world is facing," said Mike Gomez, who oversees $31-billion in emerging bonds at Pimco. "There was a large perceived difference in the risk you took investing in emerging markets. What you have now is 30% of the eurozone trading at credit levels similar to Brazil."

Not all emerging markets are doing well. Hardly anyone expects them to withstand a serious risk downturn. Overall, developing economies were in pretty good shape when the US credit crisis exploded onto world markets in 2008. Already growing twice as fast as their richer peers, these countries’ public debt ratios and budget deficits are on average half the levels seen across the developed world. Rating agencies have rewarded this strength with about 30 positive ratings actions since October versus ratings or outlook cuts handed to developed markets such as Greece, Ireland and Japan.

The spate of upgrades has raised the average rating on JP Morgan’s 37-country Emerging Markets Global Diversified index of local currency bonds to investment grade. JP Morgan’s EMBI Global index is also on the cusp of investment grade. An investment grade rating usually opens an asset class to a broader spectrum of investors such as US institutional pension funds, which, according to a recent RBC report, have just 2% of their $5-trillion assets in developing markets.

Much future crossover interest will centre on the $5.5-trillion local currency emerging bond market, in the past the preserve of the most avid risk chasers.

Emerging markets’ resilience has rekindled talk of decoupling - the view emerging markets are now strong enough to shrug off weakness in advanced economies. That theory was discredited in 2008 when emerging stocks lost half their value in the wake of falls in London and New York