An Empirical Analysis of Investment Return Dispersion in Emerging Market Private Equity

Abstract

The authors use transaction-level data to compare the dispersion of private equity (PE) returns in emerging markets (EMs) to the same in developed markets (DMs). They regress within-market absolute deviation from the mean on an EM indicator and controls. They find evidence suggesting that the distribution of transaction-level TVPI has lower variance within EMs than within DMs, although with some caveats. The results suggest opportunities for further research exploring the relative riskiness of EM PE.