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The aim of this paper is to shed some light on the issue of why some BRICS countries are doing much better than others after the international financial crisis. Although these economies share some common economic historical ground, and collectively had been performing much better than the world average in the last decades, their room to maneuver to administrate short-term economic policy to sustain growth in the context of world recession is not similar. Our main assumption is that their different performances can be explained by the degree of their external vulnerabilities, which basically depend on how cautious they were to embrace the liberal policy orientations that became dominant in the 1980s and 1990s with the so-called new macroeconomic consensus. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the effect of Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) on cash holding decisions of firms in BRIC countries. Our focus is on the firms in BRIC countries, a particularly interesting group of countries to consider given their increasingly important role in the world economy. By using firm-level data through the 10 years period of 2006–2015, we find that firms prefer to hold more cash when uncertainty increases after controlling for firm level variables with industry and year fixed effects. The results are robust to alternative control variables, EPU calculations and selection of sub-samples. In addition to the country specific EPU levels, global EPU also has a significant positive impact on corporate cash holdings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What has been the impact of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) on southern African states' development policy, practice and outcomes? Have they allowed for the creation of development space and, potentially, the emergence of developmental states, or has their influence reinforced the extractive, neo-liberal nature of most southern African economies? Drawing on key informant interviews with policy analysts and shapers in South Africa, trade data and secondary sources, this article explores the BRICS countries' relations with, and strategies towards, the region, with a specific focus on the impact of China and South Africa. It explores the nature and influence of BRICS countries' engagement in the region and the potential for policy space opened up by this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]