It is 40 years since the MSCI World index of equities was first calculated. In retrospect, the development of the index was an early step in a broader move that seemed – to most observers, most of the time – massively in favour of investors. They are beginning to see they were wrong.

As they count the cost of the financial crisis on their investment portfolios, investors are reassessing the effect of benchmarking, the process that emerged from the development of indices.