Many financial market participants view emerging markets as one amorphous bloc but, in reality, the differences between the countries and regions of the EM firmament can far outweigh their similarities.

One glaring example of this is in their household savings rates. People in emerging Asia typically saved 41.5 per cent of their income last year, according to the International Monetary Fund, the highest rate in the world.

In stark contrast, those in Latin America put aside just 17.6 per cent, and sub-Saharan Africans just 13.7 per cent.

The latter can be excused their low savings levels. With per capita gross domestic product of just $3,800 in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, far too many Africans simply lack the wherewithal to save.

But the typical Latin American has no such excuse. Their per capita income by this measure is $15,400, above the emerging market average of $10,600.

Those living in what the IMF defines as “emerging and developing Asia” (a grouping that excludes Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore, deemed emerging by some) are markedly poorer, earning an average of $9,900 in PPP terms last year. Yet their savings rate towers over anywhere else on the planet.

These patterns hold pretty much across their respective regions. As the chart shows, savings rates are higher in 12 of the 13 largest emerging Asian economies than in any of the eight Latam heavyweights.

This pattern holds almost irrespective of whether an Asian country is richer than its peers in Latin America (eg Singapore, with a per capita GDP of $85,300 or Taiwan at $46,800) or poorer (such as Bangladesh at $3,600 or Vietnam, $6,000). The only exception is Pakistan.

As such, some believe the explanation for the divergent behaviour is largely cultural.

“As an Indian, when you grow up in a scarce resource economy you learn to preserve resources and save,” says Rahul Chadha, chief investment officer at Mirae Asset Management.

“If you talk to an Indian 30-year-old, his first priority would be to pay the mortgage and the same would be the case in China,” says Mr Chadha, who adds that the family-based pooling of wealth common in countries such as India means “leverage is frowned upon”.

Marios Maratheftis, chief economist at Standard Chartered, also believes that when it comes to Asia’s exceptionalism “part of it is cultural”. Nevertheless, he believes this is far from uniform with, for example, Malaysia having “a higher debt service ratio in its household sector than the US had in 2007” in the lead-up to the financial crisis.

“One take on it is that it’s all cultural, that Latin Americans live for the moment and Asians are all very diligent and hard-working and have a natural tendency to save,” says Neil Shearing, chief emerging markets economist at Capital Economics.

However, while Mr Shearing says “there might be something to that” he believes such an answer is also “slightly lazy”.

“It’s easy to say that in Brazil, they like football and samba and they sit on the beach and they spend all the money they get.

“But the Philippines has very low domestic savings rate [with gross savings 23.7 of GDP last year, the IMF estimates], whereas China has a high one [46 per cent]. If it is all cultural, and all Asians are the same, then why is it different within regions?” he asks.

Mr Shearing believes a bigger factor is the level of state welfare provision, with many Asians choosing to save more to compensate for the relatively threadbare safety nets common in the region.

Brazil, for instance, has a “wide safety net and a pension system where you have to make almost minimal contributions in return for a decent pension”, he says.

Replacement ratios, which measure an individual’s post-retirement income relative to their pre-retirement salary, “are among the highest in the world [in Brazil] and all funded by government. In Asia, welfare safety nets are much smaller,” says Mr Shearing.

Mr Maratheftis agrees, arguing that in the likes of India, Indonesia and China, a lot of household saving is “precautionary”, that would not exist if these countries had better publicly-funded healthcare or pension systems.

As for Latin America, he believes that a continent notorious for “a history of high inflation wiping out savings” is unlikely to be one where high levels of saving have become the norm.

Mr Shearing believes another piece of the jigsaw, and one that can help explain the divide between China and the Philippines, is demographics.

The Philippines has a much younger population than its northern neighbour (with a median age of 23.2 versus 36.8 in China, according to the CIA World Factbook), and older workers tend to save more for retirement, he argues.

The question of whether or not a high or low savings rate is preferable, and thus which continent has a better model, probably comes down to personal opinion.

Mr Shearing points out that a minimum level of domestic savings is necessary to fund investment, unless a country opts to rely on foreign funding, which can have a nasty habit of evaporating just when it is most needed.

The downsides of a Brazilian-style welfare state are also apparent at present, with the federal government struggling to find the spending cuts deemed necessary to tackle a budget deficit running at more than 10 per cent of GDP, given that around 95 per cent of government spending, in areas such as pensions and education, is earmarked by the constitution.

Given the country’s mix of relatively low pension savings but relatively generous pension provision, with the shortfall covered by the government, it is perhaps unsurprising that Brazil’s pension system is widely perceived as heading for the rocks.

Allianz rated Brazil as having the second least sustainable pension system among 50 countries in 2014 (better only than Thailand), while Mercer last year ranked it as the third least sustainable (ahead of Italy and Austria) among 25 states.

Mr Shearing goes further, arguing against Brazil-style welfare states that “extend right up the income distribution” as “the people who benefit the most tend to be middle and upper classes who get good pensions”.

On the other hand, it is likely that China would have more success in its ongoing drive to rebalance its economy away from investment to consumption if it was to beef up its welfare system, reducing the need for households to make precautionary savings.

“If you get improvements in welfare, that would help,” says Mr Maratheftis.

An alternative view would be that, in an increasingly globalised and materialistic world, younger Asians will start to behave more like their peers elsewhere, irrespective of government policies.

Mr Chadha says he is far from convinced his own children or grandchildren will have the same desire to save as his generation of Indians did, while his younger Chinese colleagues also appear to be bucking the trend of their countrymen and women.

“I’m surprised how much they spend. They have a different perspective towards life,” he reports.