Without coal in the age of steam and dams in the age of electricity: An explanation for the failure of Portugal to industrialize before the Second World War

Sofia Teives Henriques () and Paul Sharp
Additional contact information
Sofia Teives Henriques: Department of Economic History, Lund University, Postal: Department of Economic History, Lund University, Box 7083, S-220 07 Lund, Sweden

No 185, Lund Papers in Economic History from Lund University, Department of Economic History

Abstract: We provide a natural resource explanation for the divergence of the Portuguese economy relative to other European countries before the Second World War, based on a considerable body of contemporary sources. First, we demonstrate that a lack of domestic resources meant that Portugal experienced limited and unbalanced growth during the age of steam. Imports of coal were prohibitively expensive for inland areas, which failed to industrialize. Coastal areas developed through steam, but were constrained by limited demand from the interior. Second, we show that after the First World War, when other coal-poor countries turned to hydro-power, Portugal relied on coal-based thermal-power, creating a vicious circle of high energy prices and labor-intensive industrialization. We argue that this was the result of (i) water resources which were relatively expensive to exploit; and (ii) path-dependency, whereby the failure to develop earlier meant that there was a lack of capital and demand from industry.

Keywords: Industrial Revolution; natural resources; coal; electrification; energy prices (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N13 N14 N53 N54 O13 Q43 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2018-12-21
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-gro and nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://lup.lub.lu.se/record/4ad0f009-5904-4c06-bc49-bd29bb8212e4 Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Without coal in the age of steam and dams in the age of electricity: an explanation for the failure of Portugal to industrialize before the Second World War (2021)
Working Paper: Without coal in the age of steam and dams in the age of electricity: an explanation for the failure of Portugal to industrialize before the Second World War (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:luekhi:0185

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Lund Papers in Economic History from Lund University, Department of Economic History Department of Economic History, Lund University, Box 7083, S-220 07 Lund, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tobias Karlsson () and Benny Carlsson ().