Economic Growth and Public Indebtedness in the Last Four Decades: Is Portugal different from the other PIIGS’ economies?

Ricardo Ferraz; António Portugal Duarte

Ricardo Ferraz
António Portugal Duarte

Keywords: Economic Growth, Portugal, ‘PIIGS’, Public Debt

Abstract

Portugal is a member of the group known by investors as ‘PIIGS’, countries characterised by having high public debt and weak economic growth. Using an extended time horizon, 1974–2014, this study seeks to empirically explore the relationship between economic growth and public debt in the PIIGS economies, particularly in the case of Portugal. Based on the estimation of linear regression models, it was concluded that in the last four decades there has been a negative relationship between economic growth and public debt in both cases, which is consistent with the literature. The negative relationship was even more pronounced in the case of the PIIGS than it was in the case of Portugal.

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Author Biographies

Ricardo Ferraz

Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Lisbon, Portugal
E-mail: ricardoferraz1984@hotmail.com

Ricardo Ferraz has a Ph.D. in economics and social history from the Lisbon School of Economics and Management (ISEG), Lisbon, Portugal. He is a post-doctoral researcher for Gabinete de História Económica e Social (GHES) of the consortium CSG of the Lisbon School of Economics and Management (ISEG), Lisbon, Portugal. He is an economic adviser at the Portuguese Parliament, having worked with the Comissão Eventual para Acompanhamento das Medidas do Programa de Assistência Financeira a Portugal, the committee specifically created to monitor Portugal’s implementation of the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding of the Financial Assistance Programme to Portugal (2011–2014).

António Portugal Duarte

Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra, Portugal
E-mail: portugal@fe.uc.pt

António Portugal Duarte earned a Ph.D. in economics and is a senior professor at the Faculty of Economics (FEUC), University of Coimbra, Portugal and Research Fellow, Grupo de Estudos Monetários e Financeiros (GEMF) of the Faculty of Economics (FEUC), University of Coimbra, Portugal. He was an honorary visiting research fellow at Birkbeck College, University of London, Department of Economics, Mathematics and Statistics, London, UK. (March 1, 2015 – May 30, 2015). He also served as a visiting professor at the Faculty of National Economy, University of Economics in Bratislava, Slovakia (November 2014) and at the Belgrade Banking Academy, Faculty for Banking, Insurance and Finance, Belgrade, Serbia (December 2014).

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