Since the beginning of the 21st century, the BRICS countries have been considered the five foremost developing economies in the world. Originally, the term BRIC was used by economists when talking about the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, however these countries have held annual summits since 2009, and the group has expanded to include South Africa since 2010. China has the largest GDP of the BRICS country, at 16.86 trillion U.S. dollars in 2021, while the others are all below three trillion. Combined, the BRICS bloc has a GDP over 25.85 trillion U.S. dollars in 2022, which is slightly more than the United States. BRICS economic development China has consistently been the largest economy of this bloc, and its rapid growth has seen it become the second largest economy in the world, behind the U.S.. China's growth has also been much faster than the other BRICS countries; for example, when compared with the second largest BRICS economy, its GDP was less than double the size of Brazil's in 2000, but is almost six times larger than India's in 2021. Since 2000, the country with the second largest GDP has fluctuated between Brazil, Russia, and India, due to a variety of factors, although India has held this position since 2015 (when the other two experienced recession), and it's growth rate is on track to surpass China's in the coming decade. South Africa has consistently had the smallest economy of the BRICS bloc, and it has just the third largest economy in Africa; its inclusion in this group is due to the fact that it is the most advanced and stable major economy in Africa, and it holds strategic importance due to the financial potential of the continent in the coming decades. Future developments It is predicted that China's GDP will overtake that of the U.S. by the end of the 2020s, to become the largest economy in the world, while some also estimate that India will also overtake the U.S. around the middle of the century. Additionally, the BRICS group is more than just an economic or trading bloc, and its New Development Bank was established in 2014 to invest in sustainable infrastructure and renewable energy across the globe. While relations between its members were often strained or of less significance in the 20th century, their current initiatives have given them a much greater international influence. The traditional great powers represented in the Group of Seven (G7) have seen their international power wane in recent decades, while BRICS countries have seen theirs grow, especially on a regional level. Today, the original BRIC countries combine with the Group of Seven (G7), to make up 11 of the world's 12 largest economies, but it is predicted that they will move further up on this list in the coming decades.

The BRICS countries overtook the G7 countries share of the world's total gross domestic product (GDP) in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP) in 2018. By 2024, the difference had increased even further, the BRICS now holding a total 35 percent of the world's GDP compared to 30 percent held by the G7 countries.

For most of the past two decades, China had the highest GDP growth of any of the BRICS countries, although it was overtaken by India in the mid-2010s, and India is predicted to have the highest growth in the 2020s. All five countries saw their GDP growth fall during the global financial crisis in 2008, and again during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020; China was the only economy that continued to grow during both crises, although India's economy also grew during the Great Recession. In 2014, Brazil experienced its own recession due to a combination of economic and political instability, while Russia also went into recession due to the drop in oil prices and the economic sanctions imposed following its annexation of Crimea.

In 2021, the BRICS countries with the highest estimated GDP per capita were Russia and China, with between 12,000 and 13,000 U.S. dollars per person. Brazil and South Africa's GDP per capita are thought to be closer to the 7,000 mark, while India's GDP per capita is just over 2,000 U.S. dollars. This a significant contrast to figures for overall GDP, where China has the largest economy by a significant margin, while India's is the second largest. The reason for this disparity is due to population size. For example, both China's population and overall GDP are roughly 10 times larger than those of Russia, which results in them having a comparable GDP per capita. Additionally, India's population is 23 times larger than South Africa's, but it's GDP is just seven times larger; this results in South Africa having a higher GDP per capita than India, despite it being the smallest of the BRICS economies.

The combined value of the gross domestic product (GDP) in purchasing power parity (PPP) of the BRICS Plus countries increased significantly since 2000, overtaking that of the G7 in 2015. This is mainly due to the economic development of China over the past decades.

The statistic shows gross domestic product (GDP) in Brazil from 1987 to 2023, with projections up until 2029. Gross domestic product denotes the aggregate value of all services and goods produced within a country in any given year. GDP is an important indicator of a country's economic power. In 2022, Brazil's gross domestic product amounted to around 1.95 trillion U.S. dollars. In comparison to the GDP of the other BRIC countries India, Russia and China, Brazil was ranked third that year.

Brazil's national finances

Brazil is one of the fastest growing economies in the world and the largest amongst all Latin American countries. Brazil is also a member of multiple economic organizations such as the G20 as well as one of the four countries in the BRIC economies, which consist of Brazil, Russia, India and China. Despite having one of the lower populations out of the four countries, Brazil maintained a relatively stable dollar value of all goods and services produced within the country in comparison to India, for example. This indicates that unemployment is low and in general business demand within the country has become relatively high.

Spending within the country has been relatively high, however is considered to be normal, especially for developing countries. It is expected that developing economies have a budget deficit of roughly 3 percent, primarily because spending is needed in order to fuel an economy at most times. However, most Brazilians still have faith in their country’s economic future and still believe that their own personal financial situation will improve along with the country’s economic position in the world.

The size of the five original BRICS economies in 2023 - Brazil, Russia, China, India, South Africa - is comparable to the United States and the EU-27 put together. On a PPP (purchasing power parity) basis, China ranks as the world's largest economy. India takes up the economic parity of about half the EU-27. The rise of these developing economies gave rise to questions on the role the United States plays in international trade and cross-border finance. FX reserve managers around the world expect to shift their holdings towards the Chinese yuan in the long term, as of 2023.

In 2024, the United States had the largest economy in the world, with a gross domestic product of just under 29 trillion U.S. dollars. China had the second largest economy, at around 18.5 trillion U.S. dollars. Recent adjustments in the list have seen Germany's economy overtake Japan's to become the third-largest in the world in 2023, while Brazil's economy moved ahead of Italy's in 2024. Global gross domestic product Global gross domestic product amounts to almost 110 trillion U.S. dollars, with the United States making up more than one-quarter of this figure alone. The 12 largest economies in the world include all Group of Seven (G7) economies, as well as the four largest BRICS economies. The U.S. has consistently had the world's largest economy since the interwar period, and while previous reports estimated it would be overtaken by China in the 2020s, more recent projections estimate the U.S. economy will remain the largest by a considerable margin going into the 2030s.The gross domestic product of a country is calculated by taking spending and trade into account, to show how much the country can produce in a certain amount of time, usually per year. It represents the value of all goods and services produced during that year. Those countries considered to have emerging or developing economies account for almost 60 percent of global gross domestic product, while advanced economies make up over 40 percent.

Of the five BRICS countries, Brazil had the highest gross government debt rate in 2023 at an estimated 88 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). On the other hand, Russia had the lowest at only 21 percent of its GDP.

This data collection consists of transcripts from 12 focus group discussions on themes related to social equality in Russia. The focus group discussions were conducted by the Institute of Applied Politics in Moscow, directed by Dr Kryshtanovskaya; using a discussion guide written by the Investigators. They were held in 12 cities chosen to represent different regions of the country, with an emphasis on provincial cities: Ufa, Kaliningrad, Ekaterinburg, Tiumen, Saratov, Ulyanovsk, Volgograd, Ivanovo, Irkutsk, Obolensk, Vladivostok and Protvino. The respondents included a mix of ages, genders, blue and white collar workers. The focus groups in Protvino and Ulyanovsk were held only for respondents age 18-29.

The focus group discussions dealt with household and national economic change, perceptions of social fairness, and welfare values. Specifically, respondents were asked about the state of the national and local economies, their household economy, how they define rich and poor people and how they position themselves in relation to these categories. They were asked about whether they perceived differences in wealth between individuals, regions and between urban and rural areas as fair, and whether such differences are increasing or decreasing. Finally they were asked about whether the rich should take more responsibility for the welfare of the poor, about their own personal responsibility and that of the state and businesses, as well as about progressive income taxes and the degree to which the state should control the economy. The discussion guide is provided in Russian and English.

Basic information about the respondents, including gender, age, and occupation are provided at the top of each focus group transcript. Each participant is identified by their given name only.

The transcripts are provided in Russian. The Russian text was transcribed by the Institute of Applied Politics from audio files.

A parallel set of focus groups was conducted in China and are available as the collection Social equality forum China: Focus group transcripts (see Related Resources).

Taken together, Russia and China account for 41 per cent of the total territory of the BRICs and 63 per cent of their GDP/PPP. On Goldman Sachs projections China will be the world’s largest economy by 2050, and Russia its sixth largest. The project will seek to examine the following propositions: (1) that these two BRIC countries are becoming increasingly unequal; (2) that within them, political power and economic advantage are increasingly closely associated; (3) that their political systems have increasingly been employed to ensure that no effective challenge can be mounted to that combination of government position and economic advantage; (4) that set against a broader comparative perspective, an increasingly unequal society in which government is effectively immune from conventional challenge is likely to become increasingly regressive, or unstable, or both. Evidence will be drawn from official statistics, interviews with policy specialists and government officials, two dozen focus groups, and an analysis of the composition of the management boards of the largest companies in both countries. A final part of the analysis will employ crossnational evidence to test a series of hypotheses relating to the association between inequality and political instability on a more broadly comparative basis.

The statistic shows GDP in India from 1987 to 2023, with projections up until 2029. In 2023, GDP in India was at around 3.57 trillion U.S. dollars, and it is expected to reach six trillion by the end of the decade. See figures on India's economic growth here, and the Russian GDP for comparison. Historical development of the Indian economy In the 1950s and 1960s, the decision of the newly independent Indian government to adopt a mixed economy, adopting both elements of both capitalist and socialist systems, resulted in huge inefficiencies borne out of the culture of interventionism that was a direct result of the lackluster implementation of policy and failings within the system itself. The desire to move towards a Soviet style mass planning system failed to gain much momentum in the Indian case due to a number of hindrances, an unskilled workforce being one of many.When the government of the early 90’s saw the creation of small-scale industry in large numbers due to the removal of price controls, the economy started to bounce back, but with the collapse of the Soviet Union - India’s main trading partner - the hampering effects of socialist policy on the economy were exposed and it underwent a large-scale liberalization. By the turn of the 21st century, India was rapidly progressing towards a free-market economy. India’s development has continued and it now belongs to the BRICS group of fast developing economic powers, and the incumbent Modi administration has seen India's GDP double during its first decade in power.

This article employs a Panel Mean Group Autoregressive Distributed Lag (PMG-ARDL) approach to investigate the interaction between carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), fossil fuel, renewable energy consumption, trade, and their collective impact on life expectancy within the BRICS nations. The research reveals compelling findings. Notably, CO2 emissions and trade openness exhibit negative and statistically significant impact on life expectancy. In contrast, GDP per capita and renewable energy consumption are positive and significant determinants of longer life expectancy. The nuanced outcomes underscore the complex interplay of economic, environmental, and social factors within the BRICS nations. The effects found by PMG-ARDL and FMOLS are very comparable, except for the trade openness’ coefficients, which is the inverse. These findings hold significant implications for policy interpretation and sustainable development strategies. As nations struggle to balance economic growth and environmental improvement with public health, tailored interventions targeting CO2 reduction, trade openness, renewable energy, and GDP growth can collectively contribute to longer life expectancy. In a broader context, this research contributes to the global discourse on sustainability, economic improvement, and health issue.

Since 2000, China has consistently been the largest exporter of goods among the BRICS countries, and its share of exports from the bloc has increased significantly. In the year 2000, China's share of BRICS exports was just over 50 percent; in 2020, this share has risen to 74 percent. Among the other BRICS countries, Russia has always had the second largest share of exports, and South Africa the smallest, while India overtook Brazil in 2009.

The euro and U.S. dollar made up more than seven of 10 SWIFT payments worldwide in 2024, outperforming many other currencies. This is according to a monthly report meant to track the market share of China's yuan renminbi within the international bank transfer system SWIFT. Although China holds the largest forex reserves in the world, the yuan ranked as the eighth-used currency in international payments. The figures concern customer-initiated and institutional payments and exclude trade. Discussions on the potential weakening role of the U.S. dollar especially touch world trade and forex. For example, the share of the USD in forex reserves declined visibly against the euro and Japanese yen in 2023. What sparked this de-dollarization trend, and will it continue? Trade sanctions and de-dollarization De-dollarization in 2023 is mentioned mostly alongside trade and the BRICS countries - an informal name given to Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The combined GDP of BRICS is about 25 percent of the world's economy. After the start of the Ukraine war and Russia received economic sanctions, the BRICS slowly evolved into a trading bloc. The group increasingly wanted its own currency to settle payments within the trade bloc, to avoid using the U.S. dollar. In August 2023, BRICS will gather in South Africa to discuss the creation of such a new joint currency. Additionally, 19 countries - including Argentina, Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Yemen - expressed interest in joining the BRICS group. CBDC, or projects into a digital payment settlement A factor of future uncertainty for the U.S. dollar is how central bank digital currencies (CBDC) develop in emerging countries. Several projects exist between individual countries that specifically target cross-border interbank payments. A cooperation between Thailand and Hong Kong, Inthanon-Lionrock, ranks as the most advanced of these projects. CBDC does not require the U.S. dollar to function. Tangible such as commodities or gold can back them. The value of transactions processed with CBDC is to grow by 260,000 percent between 2023 and 2030.

In 2023, it is estimated that the BRICS countries have a combined population of 3.25 billion people, which is over 40 percent of the world population. The majority of these people live in either China or India, which have a population of more than 1.4 billion people each, while the other three countries have a combined population of just under 420 million. Comparisons Although the BRICS countries are considered the five foremost emerging economies, they are all at various stages of the demographic transition and have different levels of population development. For all of modern history, China has had the world's largest population, but rapidly dropping fertility and birth rates in recent decades mean that its population growth has slowed. In contrast, India's population growth remains much higher, and it is expected to overtake China in the next few years to become the world's most populous country. The fastest growing population in the BRICS bloc, however, is that of South Africa, which is at the earliest stage of demographic development. Russia, is the only BRICS country whose population is currently in decline, and it has been experiencing a consistent natural decline for most of the past three decades. Growing populations = growing opportunities Between 2000 and 2026, the populations of the BRICS countries is expected to grow by 625 million people, and the majority of this will be in India and China. As the economies of these two countries grow, so too do living standards and disposable income; this has resulted in the world's two most populous countries emerging as two of the most profitable markets in the world. China, sometimes called the "world's factory" has seen a rapid growth in its middle class, increased potential of its low-tier market, and its manufacturing sector is now transitioning to the production of more technologically advanced and high-end goods to meet its domestic demand.

This data file includes the Gini coefficient calculated for different wealth welfare aggregates constructed for all Luxembourg Wealth Study (LWS) datasets in all waves (as of March 2022). It includes Gini coefficients calculated on: • Disposable Net Worth • Value of Principal residence • Financial Assets

This project sought to renew the ESRC's invaluable financial support to LIS (formerly the Luxembourg Income Study) for a period of five more years. LIS is an independent, non-profit cross-national data archive and research institute located in Luxembourg. LIS relies on financial contributions from national science foundations, other research institutions and consortia, data-providing agencies, and supranational organisations to support data harmonisation and enable free and unlimited data access to researchers in the participating countries and to students world-wide. LIS' primary activity is to make harmonised household microdata available to researchers, thus enabling cross-national, interdisciplinary primary research into socio-economic outcomes and their determinants. Users of the Luxembourg Income Study Database and Luxembourg Wealth Study Database come from countries around the globe, including the UK. LIS has four goals: 1) to harmonise microdatasets from high- and middle-income countries that include data on income, wealth, employment, and demography; 2) to provide a secure method for researchers to query data that would otherwise be unavailable due to country-specific privacy restrictions; 3) to create and maintain a remote-execution system that sends research query results quickly back to users at off-site locations; and 4) to enable, facilitate, promote and conduct crossnational comparative research on the social and economic wellbeing of populations across countries. LIS contains the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) Database, which includes income data, and the Luxembourg Wealth Study (LWS) Database, which focuses on wealth data. LIS currently includes microdata from 46 countries in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and Australasia. LIS contains over 250 datasets, organised into eight time "waves," spanning the years 1968 to 2011. Since 2007, seventeen more countries have been added to LIS, including the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), Japan, South Korea and a number of other Latin American countries. LWS contains 20 wealth datasets from 12 countries, including the UK, and covers the period 1994 to 2007. All told, LIS and LWS datasets together cover 86% of world GDP and 64% of world population. Users submit statistical queries to the microdatabases using a Java-based job submission interface or standard email. The databases are especially valuable for primary research in that they offer access to cross-national data at the micro-level - at the level of households and persons. Users are economists, sociologists, political scientists, and policy analysts, among others, and they employ a range of statistical approaches and methods. LIS also provides extensive documentation - metadata - for both LIS and LWS, concerning technical aspects of the survey data, the harmonisation process, and the social institutions of income and wealth provision in participating countries. In the next five years, for which support is sought, LIS will: - expand LIS, adding Waves IX (2013) and X (2016), and add new middle-income countries; - develop LWS, adding another wave of datasets to existing countries; acquire new wealth datasets for 14 more countries in cooperation with the European Central Bank (based on the Household Finance and Consumption Survey); - create a state-of-the-art metadata search and storage system; - maintain international standards in data security and data infrastructure systems; - provide high-quality harmonised household microdata to researchers around the world; - enable interdisciplinary cross-national social science research covering 45+ countries, including the UK; - aim to broaden its reach and impact in academic and non-academic circles through focused communications strategies and collaborations.

This data set consists of transcripts from 10 focus group discussions on themes related to social equality in China. The focus group discussions were conducted by Horizon Research Consultancy using a discussion guide written by the Investigators. They were held in nine cities chosen to represent east, west and south China, including 4 provincial capitals: Beijing, Changsha, Guangzhou, and Shanghai, and 5 prefecture level cities: Baoding, Fuzhou, Luoyang, Mianyang, and Suzhou. The respondents included a mix of ages, genders, blue and white collar workers, and included at least one migrant (from another province) in each focus group. Separate focus group discussions were held for respondents with mainly urban hukou (residence registration) and for respondents with mainly rural hukou. There were two discussions in Guangzhou, one for each residence registration category. The focus groups in Baoding and Suzhou were held only for respondents age 18-29. Further details of recruitment and stratification are given in the documentation.

The focus group discussions dealt with household and national economic change, perceptions of social fairness, and welfare values. Specifically, respondents were asked about the state of the national and local economies, their household economy, how they define rich and poor people and how they position themselves in relation to these categories. They were asked about whether they perceived differences in wealth between individuals, regions and between urban and rural areas as fair, and whether such differences are increasing or decreasing. Finally they were asked about whether the rich should take more responsibility for the welfare of the poor, about their own personal responsibility and that of the state and businesses.

Prior to taking part in the focus group discussions, participants completed a screening questionnaire, which also served to collect basic information, including gender, age, marital status, ethnicity, level of education, self-assessed adequacy of income, occupation, hukou, property ownership and type of neighbourhood. The screening questionnaire and information on participants are included.

The transcripts are provided in English and Chinese. The Chinese text was transcribed by Horizon from audio files by someone familiar with the local dialect. The English translations were done by a native English speaker with help from a Chinese assistant. The participants are identified in the transcripts by a seat number, which corresponds to the information on participants in the Excel files. Where individuals' names were disclosed in the discussion, these have been replaced by their seat number. A set of brief notes from the translator is included.

A parallel set of focus group discussions was held in Russia and is available as the collection Social Equality Forum Russia: Focus Group Transcripts (see Related Resources).

Taken together, Russia and China account for 41 per cent of the total territory of the BRICs and 63 per cent of their GDP/PPP. On Goldman Sachs projections China will be the world’s largest economy by 2050, and Russia its sixth largest. The project will seek to examine the following propositions: (1) that these two BRIC countries are becoming increasingly unequal; (2) that within them, political power and economic advantage are increasingly closely associated; (3) that their political systems have increasingly been employed to ensure that no effective challenge can be mounted to that combination of government position and economic advantage; (4) that set against a broader comparative perspective, an increasingly unequal society in which government is effectively immune from conventional challenge is likely to become increasingly regressive, or unstable, or both.

Evidence will be drawn from official statistics, interviews with policy specialists and government officials, two dozen focus groups, and an analysis of the composition of the management boards of the largest companies in both countries. A final part of the analysis will employ crossnational evidence to test a series of hypotheses relating to the association between inequality and political instability on a more broadly comparative basis.

Fitness variation from 2003 to 2013 of the states: São Paulo, Paraná, Ceará, and Roraima.

Since 2000, China has generally had the most stable inflation rate of the BRICS bloc, with annual change fluctuating between negative one and six percent. In contrast, Russia's inflation rates reached the highest levels in the past two decades, particularly in the early 2000s, during the financial crisis of 2008, and after 2014 when its economy was affected by the drop in international oil prices and the sanctions imposed for the annexation of Crimea.

This dataset consists of two datasets that merge different data available in the public domain. The data consists of measures of well being for a cross- section of countries which are the dependent variables. The main explanatory variables are different measures of allele frequencies representing genetic differences. The resulting paper examines a famous puzzle in social science. Why do some nations report such high happiness? Denmark, for instance, regularly tops the league table of rich nations’ wellbeing; Great Britain and the US enter further down; France and Italy do relatively poorly. Yet the explanation for this ranking – one that holds even after adjustment for GDP and socioeconomic and cultural variables – remains unknown. The paper explores a new avenue. Using data on 131 countries, it documents a range of evidence consistent with the hypothesis that certain nations may have a genetic advantage in well-being.

CAGE will aim to build on initial success while offering some important innovations. The overarching theme will continue to be 'succeeding in the global economy' and the Centre will be organised into research themes each with an 'organizing question': Theme 1: What Explains Comparative Long-Run Growth Performance?; Theme 2: How do Culture and Institutions Help to Explain Development and Divergence in a Globalizing World?; Theme 3: How Can the Measurement of Wellbeing be Improved and What are the Implications for Policy?; Theme 4: What are the Implications of Globalization and Global Crises for Policymaking and for Economic and Political Outcomes in Western Democracies? During phase 1, research in Theme 1 made excellent progress in establishing a detailed quantitative picture of the dimensions of long-run economic growth over the last 800 years in Europe and Asia and the analysis will now be extended to cover Africa, and move from measuring real GDP per capita to accounting for the sources of growth in terms of factor inputs and their productivity. Research will also analyse the reasons for success and failure over the long-run at a more fundamental level with investigations covering pre-industrial to post-industrial times looking at the roles of geography, institutions, trade costs, and human capital and knowledge as well as economic policy. Some of this will be forward-looking considering reforms that may be need to sustain catch-up growth in the BRICs and in post-crisis Europe. Theme 2 will continue to examine the political economy of institutional change and to investigate other aspects of supply-side policy relevant to enterprise performance in developing countries. Research will now be expanded and slightly re-orientated to address the role of trust and, in particular, to consider how trust can be nurtured. This will enable further investigation into why reform programmes such as those based on Washington-Consensus principles have not worked well besides permitting insights into the roots of underdevelopment. Theme 3 will further develop the evidence base for its innovative approach to the analysis of poverty with a programme of field experiments and will continue to augment the evidence base on the determinants of wellbeing and the policy implications thereof. It will elaborate the ways in which poverty via cognitive impairment leads to unfortunate decision-making, to examining implications of adaptation to well-being shocks and to the role that cognitive biases and genetics play in wellbeing outcomes. Theme 4 will build on the work begun after the appointment of a Professor of Quantitative Political Science as a key investment to further the work of CAGE. This research has examined the implications of tax competition for capital mobility and viability of welfare state policies in OECD countries as globalization has intensified. The research highlights differing exposure to globalization threats. During phase 2, research on these issues will be deepened and extended using formal analysis and econometrics to investigate issues which are deeply political in that they involve contentious policy choices and are conditioned by political institutions. The topics to be studied include the implications of globalization and economic crises for voter preferences and for redistribution and welfare spending in different types of advanced economy, and much more detailed investigation of the dimensions of the responses available to co-ordinated and liberal market economies. In conclusion, the distinctive feature of CAGE is that it crosses divides within economics broadly defined and explores issues traditionally regarded as at the boundaries of economics. CAGE research and policy advice is sensitive to context and based on an empirical approach that does not arbitrarily impose the priors of neoclassical economics. Finally, CAGE is able to bring an informed historical perspective to current policy issues.