The great escape? The contribution of the empire to Portugal’s economic growth, 1500-1800

Leonor Costa, Nuno Palma and Jaime Reis

IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola

Abstract: Newly assembled macroeconomic statistics for early modern Portugal reveal one of Europe’s most vigorous colonial traders and at the same time one of its least successful growth records. Using an estimated model in the spirit of Allen (2009) we conclude that intercontinental trade had a substantial and increasingly positive impact on economic growth. In the heyday of colonial expansion, eliminating the economic links to empire would have reduced Portugal’s per capita income by roughly a fifth. While the empire helped the domestic economy it was not sufficient to annul the tendency towards decline in relation to Europe’s advanced core which set in from the 17th century onwards. We conclude that the explanation for Portugal’s long-term backwardness must be sought primarily in domestic conditions

Keywords: The; European; Little; Divergence; Early; Modern; Economic; Growth; Economics; of; Empires (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N10 N13 N70 N74 O47 O57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-10-31
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cte:whrepe:wp13-07

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