Another big difference from prior years is the growing presence of delegates from emerging markets, in particular China and India: the Chinese delegation is the largest ever and India is the cultural host of this year's gathering. With emerging markets accounting for half of global growth in the next few years, this "rebalancing" of the Davos delegates seems quite appropriate.

Davos occurs on at least three different levels. The first is the public forums and discussions—these are the least interesting. Much more interesting are the private events that are by invitation only and closed to the media. By far the most interesting are the bilateral meetings in which corporate leaders and politicians assemble to make progress on key business and policy issues.