Pension investment in private equity started in the United States and Canada in the late-1970s, an era of high inflation and mediocre performance for most listed equity markets, when large institutional investors began to diversify into “non-traditional” asset classes such as private equity and real estate. The trend towards increased allocation to private equity including venture capital accelerated after 2009-2010. At the start of the Great Recession, European and Canadian financial economics experts notably from the World Pensions Council estimated that: