Path-Dependence and Economic Performance in Portugal

This paper examines how Portugal’s revolutionary legacies have affected the country’s economic performance in the years prior to the global financial crisis, from 1999-2007. The main argument is that the distinctiveness of the country’s passageway from dictatorship to democracy, coupled with other crucial features of its recent political past, helped to set the stage for the subsequent economic challenges that the country experienced following accession to the European Monetary Union in 1999 and led to the country’s bailout. The paper closes with some lessons from the Portuguese experience.