Weight in   Weight in Country Index Country Index Austria 0.05% Spain 1.22% Belgium 0.43 Sweden 0.76 Denmark 0.32 Switzerland 3.31 Finland 0.70 United Kingdom 10.87 France 3.93 Hong Kong 0.64 Germany 2.90 Japan 8.94 Greece 0.15 Singapore 0.33 Ireland 0.33 Australia 1.73 Italy 1.49 New Zealand 0.06 Netherlands 2.45 Canada 2.16 Norway 0.20 United States 53.15 Portugal 0.14 Emerging markets 3.76 It is interesting to examine regional composition of the MSCI World index and how it changes over time. If any given region significantly outperforms others, that portion of the index will grow. Note in Figure 8.2 that in the late 1980s Australasia and the Far East constituted nearly 50 percent of the index, whereas the current weight is only 13 percent. Basket of Local Indexes In addition to using a family of global equity indexes such as SSBGEI or MSCI ACWI, we can consider using a basket of market capitalization weighted local indexes. Table 8.4 shows a list of countries that are included in the SSBGEI and MSCI World (developed), and their corresponding local indexes. 100% - □Europe nFarEast ■Pacific uNorth America FIGURE 8.2 Regional Composition of the MSCI World Index