This paper examines the causal relationship among private credit, bank credit and gross domestic product in 4 South American economies: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Peru.The Geweke decomposition test is used to estimate the degree of causality among the variables.Also, we employ quarterly data for the period 1994-2013 to analyze short and long run relations using vector autoregressive models and error correction models.The results indicate that there is bidirectional causality among the variables in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Peru.In general, credit measures have a positive impact on gross domestic product, except in Argentina, where the process of financial liberalization carried out caused major obstacles to financing productive activities of microentrepreneurs.