IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ise/gheswp/wp582016.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The chronic food deficit of early modern Portugal: curse or myth?

Author

Listed:
  • Leonor Freire Costa
  • Jaime Reis

Abstract

Two historiographical currents have debated whether early modern Portugal was cursed by an excessive dependence on foreign food imports as a result of being unable to feed its population, or not. In this short paper, the first long-run systematic quantitative study of this question, we show that the former view is a myth and therefore could not be a curse. Throughout the entire period, a certain amount of grain was in fact imported but cereal purchases abroad never represented more than a diminutive percentage of total food consumption. More importantly, the country carried out a diversified trade in foodstuffs which was seldom seriously out of balance. Portuguese agriculture showed itself consistently capable of specializing in different foodstuffs for export. It was thus not hopelessly inefficient and succeeded reasonably well in meeting the basic nutritional needs of the population.

Suggested Citation

  • Leonor Freire Costa & Jaime Reis, 2016. "The chronic food deficit of early modern Portugal: curse or myth?," Working Papers GHES - Office of Economic and Social History 2016/58, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, GHES - Social and Economic History Research Unit, Universidade de Lisboa.
    • Handle: RePEc:ise:gheswp:wp582016
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ghes.rc.iseg.ulisboa.pt/wp/wp582016.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. A-B. Nunes & C. Bastien & N. Valério & R. Martins De Sousa & S. Domingo Costa, 2011. "Banking in the Portuguese Colonial Empire (1864-1975)," Economies et Sociétés (Serie 'Histoire Economique Quantitative'), Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), issue 44, pages 1483-1554, September.
    2. Ana Bela Nunes & Nuno Valerio & Rita Martins de Sousa, 2005. "The Long-Run Behaviour of the Income Velocity of Money in Portugal: 1854-1992," Working Papers GHES - Office of Economic and Social History 2005/23, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, GHES - Social and Economic History Research Unit, Universidade de Lisboa.
    3. Ana Bela Nunes & Miguel St. Aubyn & Nuno Valerio & Rita Martins de Sousa, 2011. "The Determinants of the Behaviour of the Income Velocity of Money in Portugal 1891-1998: An Econometric Approach," Working Papers GHES - Office of Economic and Social History 2011/45, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, GHES - Social and Economic History Research Unit, Universidade de Lisboa.
    4. Amélia Branco & Nuno Valério & Rita Martins de Sousa, 2012. "Echoes from the Past: Portuguese Stabilizations of the 1890S and 1920S," Working Papers GHES - Office of Economic and Social History 2012/47, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, GHES - Social and Economic History Research Unit, Universidade de Lisboa.
    5. Amelia Dias & Francisco M. Parejo Moruno, 2006. "0 Comércio Externo Corticeiro na Peninsula Ibérica no Período de 1930 a 1974 - Uma Perspectiva Comparada," Working Papers GHES - Office of Economic and Social History 2006/28, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, GHES - Social and Economic History Research Unit, Universidade de Lisboa.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Palma, Nuno & Reis, Jaime, 2019. "From Convergence to Divergence: Portuguese Economic Growth, 1527–1850," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 79(2), pages 477-506, June.
    2. Jaime Reis, 2016. "The Gross Agricultural Output of Portugal: A Quantitative, Unified Perspective, 1500-1850," Working Papers 0098, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    3. Kedrosky, Davis & Palma, Nuno, 2021. "The Cross of Gold: Brazilian Treasure and the Decline of Portugal," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 574, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    4. Pedro Lains, 2017. "Portugal’s wine globalization waves, 1750-2015," Working Papers 0113, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Amélia Branco & Francisco M. Parejo, 2010. "The Creation of a Competitive Advantage in the Portuguese Cork Industry: The Contribution of an Industrial District," Working Papers GHES - Office of Economic and Social History 2010/43, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, GHES - Social and Economic History Research Unit, Universidade de Lisboa.
    2. Ana Bela Nunes, 2015. "The Portuguese economy in the 1980s: structural change and short-term upheavals," Working Papers GHES - Office of Economic and Social History 2015/55, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, GHES - Social and Economic History Research Unit, Universidade de Lisboa.
    3. Carmen M. Reinhart & Vincent Reinhart & Christoph Trebesch, 2016. "Global Cycles: Capital Flows, Commodities, and Sovereign Defaults, 1815-2015," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 574-580, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Food deficit; Agriculture; Foreign trade; Portugal JEL classification: N53; O49;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N53 - Economic History - - Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment and Extractive Industries - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • O49 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Other

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ise:gheswp:wp582016. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Natalia Nobre (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://aquila.iseg.ulisboa.pt/aquila/research/ghes .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.