Regardless of the growing attention towards the emerging economies, there is not a shared definition as to what an “emerging economy” is and which economies are to be classified as “emerging”. The two-step statistical analysis of 29 indicators for 176 economies from 2003-2008 showed the need of further exploration of the definition. The study is partly confirming the validity of emerging economies classification in terms of economic growth, lower level of economies’ and financial markets’ development, inefficient institutional context, while the level of indebtedness, government intervention and the rates of new businesses creation were higher than expected for developed economies.