Title: The peripheral economy, its performance in isolation and with integration : the case of Portugal
Abstract: Policy-makers in any country desire to attain numerous goals. The most common ones are: high rates of growth; efficiency; technological progress; equity; price stability; socio-economic tranquility; and independence. The experience of many nations has shown that these goals cannot always be reached simultaneously, and that they are often contradictory. Maximizing growth, efficiency and technological advancement may interfere with equity-e.g., incentive systems to encourage savings, investment and technological development may lead to greater inequality; efficient growth may require concentrating investment projects in already favored areas of a country and thus worsen regional inequality. Efficiency may demand a greater opening of the economy and thus decrease the country's economic and political independence. Thus, policy-makers often have to make painful decisions, i.e. making trade-off calculations and pursue one set of goals at the expense of others. These decisions are even more painful for policy-makers of small countries, especially those whose economies are relatively poor. Having small populations and/or very limited natural resources, the policy-makers of these countries feel more pressure to make painful choices than their colleagues of larger economies. When small countries join a common market, many of the choices are taken out of their hands, and the availability of investment resources, their allocation, their impact on employment, technology, and distribution are determined by broader market forces and the actions of supra-national policy-making bodies. Whether this bodes well for the development of less developed countries or will result in their continued marginalization at the periphery of a dynamic common market is still an open question. It is within this framework that we shall analyze Portugal's economic development since the 1930s, in order to assess the country's future within the European Economic Community (EEC), especially after the 1992 goal of total integration. We shall first review the stages of Portugal's economic growth since the early 1930s. This will be followed by an empirical examination of the economy's performance since that date. In a final section, we shall consider the positive and negative potential impact of the integration into the EEC on Portugal's economic development, taking into account the above mentioned goals of policy-makers.
Publication Year: 1991
Publication Date: 1991-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 5
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