The paper investigates on theoretical and empirical grounds the main determinants of economic growth for Brazil, Russia, India, China (BRIC) and South Africa. The empirical results from the variance decomposition analysis (VDA) for the real GDP growth reveal a primary role played by the investment rate and inflation to explain economic growth in these countries, but other factors, such as the real interest rate (Brazil, India and South Africa), the real effective exchange rate (China and India), FDI flows (China and South Africa) and population growth (India and Russia) are also important, regardless of their lower relative contribution.
Economic development; Foreign economic policy; Emerging economies; BRICs
