From the mid-1980s to the late-1990s a considerable number of empirical studies investigated the impact of the Welfare State (WS) on economic growth with no definite conclusions on the sign, transmission mechanisms and direction of causality of the relationship. More recently, globalization,...

Desenvolvemos um estudo cross-country aplicado a um conjunto de países da OCDE no período de 1980-2013 que visa analisar a relação macroeconómica de longo-prazo entre as despesas sociais públicas agregadas e o produto. É um estudo de estatística descritiva e econométrica que pretende...

Keynes has emphasized a particular situation in which the liquidity preference becomes absolute, leading to monetary policy ineffectiveness: the near zero nominal rate of interest does not allow negative values of the real interest rate. This situation is termed liquidity trap (LT) and although...

This paper analyses the fundamentals of the Portuguese crisis. The financial crisis of 2007 worsened and triggered the current Portuguese crisis. We argue that the main problem that the economy is facing is its output stagnation due to a kind of Dutch disease that has created high and increasing...

This study is based on the idea that inadequate use of fiscal policy through restrictive policies shifts the short-run demand curve that in turn induces shifts in the long-run supply curve leading to a dynamic reduction of growth. The analogy with the old metaphor of the Spanish horse seems...

This paper examines the relationship between inequality and economic growth for thirty Portuguese NUTS3 regions within a multivariate panel framework over the period 1995-2007, using panel cointegration techniques to test for the existence of a relationship between inequality and real GDP per...

The aim of this paper is to examine to what extent the adoption by Portugal of an exchange rate target zone regime in the context of its participation in the ERM of the EMS can be characterised by the existence of a nonlinear S-shaped relationship between the exchange rate and its fundamental....

The Fiscal Compact has created new responsibilities in terms of quantitative measures of excess demand in the economy. The concept of structural budget balance is dependent on cycle values. As a consequence one of the primary responsibilities of economics is to build a good indicator of the...

The Portuguese economy has benefited from large amounts of European structural funds since the mid-eighties. At the same time, interest rates have decreased substantially, mainly due to a credibility phenomenon. The effects of those funds and the reduction of financial costs can be considered as...

Nesta comunicação procurei mostrar a originalidade da política monetária do Banco Central Europeu (BCE), a dificuldade de uma avaliação conclusiva da sua acção e o contexto teórico da sua intervenção. Também foi feita uma avaliação da sua capacidade de resposta à actual crise,...