IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ise/isegwp/wp262012.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Portugal and the Global Financial Crisis – short-sighted politics, deteriorating public finances and the bailout imperative

Author

Listed:
  • Paulo T. Pereira,
  • Lara Wemans,

Abstract

The aim of this paper is twofold. On the one hand to explain the institutional, economic and political foundations of the Portuguese bailout in April 2011. On the other hand, to clarify the impact of the global financial crisis (GFC) in Portuguese public finances, and the interaction between domestic fiscal policy and monitoring and recommendations from the European Commission (EC) and the European Council (ECo). A long run perspective (1974-2011) on management of public finances shows that Portugal has some institutional and constitutional problems that should be sorted out in order to achieve sound public finances. Moreover, in the second half of the 90s fiscal policy was expansionary and the high conversion rate of the former currency (escudo) to the euro still hampers economic growth and competitiveness. With weak growth in the first decade of XXI century and persistent public and external deficits, Portugal came to the frontline of the negative impacts of the GFC. The total absence of political cooperation and the existence of some minority governments only made things worst. We conclude, with a brief overview of the bailout, its prospects of success, and some structural institutional measures that should be taken.

Suggested Citation

  • Paulo T. Pereira, & Lara Wemans,, 2012. "Portugal and the Global Financial Crisis – short-sighted politics, deteriorating public finances and the bailout imperative," Working Papers Department of Economics 2012/26, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    • Handle: RePEc:ise:isegwp:wp262012
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://depeco.iseg.ulisboa.pt/wp/wp262012.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paulo Trigo Pereira & João Andrade e Silva, 2007. "Citizens’ Freedom to Choose Representatives: Ballot Structure, Proportionality and “Fragmented” Parliaments," Working Papers Department of Economics 2007/13, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    2. van Riet, Ad, 2010. "Euro area fiscal policies and the crisis," Occasional Paper Series 109, European Central Bank.
    3. Trabandt, Mathias & Attinasi, Maria Grazia & Stark, Jürgen & Lalouette, Laure & Nickel, Christiane & Valenta, Vilém & van Riet, Ad & Leiner-Killinger, Nadine & Afonso, António & Warmedinger, Thomas & , 2010. "Euro area fiscal policies and the crisis," Occasional Paper Series 109, European Central Bank.
    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. Jean Pisani-Ferry & André Sapir & Guntram B. Wolff, . "EU-IMF assistance to euro area countries- an early assessment," Blueprints, Bruegel, number 779, June.
    2. Célia Sousa Martins & Cristina Soares Cavaco, 2018. "Portuguese West Coast tourism resorts: an unfinished landscape of territorial liabilities," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(1), pages 94-114, January.
    3. Hee Soo Lee & Tae Yoon Kim, 2022. "A new analytical approach for identifying market contagion," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-35, December.

    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. Hauptmeier, Sebastian & Sanchez-Fuentes, A. Jesus & Schuknecht, Ludger, 2011. "Towards expenditure rules and fiscal sanity in the euro area," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 597-617, July.
    2. Sławomir Bukowski, 2011. "Economic and Monetary Union – Current Fiscal Disturbances and the Future," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 17(3), pages 274-287, August.
    3. Luca Arciero & Ronald Heijmans & Richard Heuver & Marco Massarenti & Cristina Picillo & Francesco Vacirca, 2016. "How to Measure the Unsecured Money Market: The Eurosystem’s Implementation and Validation Using TARGET2 Data," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 12(1), pages 247-280, March.
    4. Lojsch, Dagmar Hartwig & Rodríguez-Vives, Marta & Slavík, Michal, 2011. "The size and composition of government debt in the euro area," Occasional Paper Series 132, European Central Bank.
    5. Mario Di Serio & Matteo Fragetta & Emanuel Gasteiger & Giovanni Melina, 2022. "The Euro Area Government Spending Multiplier in Demand- and Supply-Driven Recessions," CESifo Working Paper Series 9678, CESifo.
    6. Szilárd Benk & Zoltán M. Jakab, 2012. "Non-Keynesian Effects of Fiscal Consolidation: An Analysis with an Estimated DSGE Model for the Hungarian Economy," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 945, OECD Publishing.
    7. Luca Arciero & Ronald Heijmans & Richard Heuver & Marco Massarenti & Cristina Picillo & Francesco Vacirca, 2014. "How to measure the unsecured money market? The Eurosystem�s implementation and validation using TARGET2 data," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 215, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    8. Ronald Heijmans & Lola Hernández & Richard Heuver, 2013. "Determinants of the rate of the Dutch unsecured overnight money market," DNB Working Papers 374, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    9. Ludger Schuknecht & Philippe Moutot & Philipp Rother & Jürgen Stark, 2011. "The Stability and Growth Pact: Crisis and Reform," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 9(3), pages 10-17, October.
    10. Jernej Mencinger Aleksander Aristovnik, 2014. "Fiscal Policy Stance Reaction to the Financial/Economic Crisis in the EMU: The Case of Slovenia," Zagreb International Review of Economics and Business, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb, vol. 17(Special C), pages 17-30, December.
    11. Ad Van Riet, 2017. "A New Era For Monetary Policy: Challenges For The European Central Bank," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 62(01), pages 57-86, March.
    12. Ureche-Rangau, Loredana & Burietz, Aurore, 2013. "One crisis, two crises…the subprime crisis and the European sovereign debt problems," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 35-44.
    13. Lo Duca, Marco & Koban, Anne & Basten, Marisa & Bengtsson, Elias & Klaus, Benjamin & Kusmierczyk, Piotr & Lang, Jan Hannes & Detken, Carsten & Peltonen, Tuomas, 2017. "A new database for financial crises in European countries," ESRB Occasional Paper Series 13, European Systemic Risk Board.
    14. Mencinger, Jernej & Verbic, Miroslav & Aristovnik, Aleksander, 2015. "Revisiting the role of public debt in economic growth: The case of OECD countries," MPRA Paper 67704, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Beirne, John & Dalitz, Lars & Ejsing, Jacob & Grothe, Magdalena & Manganelli, Simone & Monar, Fernando & Sahel, Benjamin & Sušec, Matjaž & Tapking, Jens & Vong, Tana, 2011. "The impact of the Eurosystem's covered bond purchase programme on the primary and secondary markets," Occasional Paper Series 122, European Central Bank.
    16. Sebastian Hauptmeier & A. Jesús Sánchez Fuentes & Ludger Schuknecht, 2015. "Spending Dynamics in Euro Area Countries: Composition and Determinants," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 215(4), pages 119-138, December.
    17. Thomas Warmedinger & Cristina Checherita-Westphal & Pablo Hernández de Cos, 2015. "Fiscal Multipliers and Beyond," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 215(4), pages 139-168, December.
    18. António Afonso & Jaromír Baxa & Michal Slavík, 2018. "Fiscal developments and financial stress: a threshold VAR analysis," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 395-423, March.
    19. Brügelmann, Ralph, 2010. "Die Wirkung von Konjunkturprogrammen," IW-Trends – Vierteljahresschrift zur empirischen Wirtschaftsforschung, Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (IW) / German Economic Institute, vol. 37(4), pages 67-80.
    20. Forster , Katrin & Vasardani, Melina A. & Ca' Zorzi, Michele, 2011. "Euro area cross-border financial flows and the global financial crisis," Occasional Paper Series 126, European Central Bank.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    H30; H50; H60;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H30 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - General
    • H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General
    • H60 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - General

    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:isegwp:wp262012. 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: Vitor Escaria (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://aquila.iseg.ulisboa.pt/aquila/departamentos/EC .

    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.