Nationalizations and de-nationalizations in Portugal (19th and 20th centuries): a historical assessment

• Autor(a) principal: Nunes, Ana Bela
• Data de Publicação: 2005
• Outros Autores: Bastien, Carlos, Valério, Nuno
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/825
• topic: Economic History; First World War; Economic Growth (1920's); Economic Policy; Mix Enterprises; Autonomous Services; Public Enterprises; Nationalizations Process (1974-1976); Reprivatization policy (1980's)

This did not prevent the Portuguese State from becoming the owner of an enterprise sector in the course of the 19th and 20th centuries. The history of this State enterprise sector can be divided into four main periods. The first period, tasting up to the First World War, was characterised by the reduced size and unsystematic nature of the formation of what, in the terminology of the period, was known by the name of autonomous services]. The second period, from the First World War to the end of the 1920s, was characterised by a cycle of rapid growth in these autonomous services, followed by an equally rapid decline. The third period, from fre late 1920s to the early 1970s, was characterised by the formation of some mixed enterprises, autonomous services and public enterprises, without any new systematic effort having been made to expand the public sector of production. The fourth period, beginning after the revoluüon of 25 April 1974, was characterised by a second cycle of rapid growth in public brought about by a systematic process of nationalizations between 1974 and 1976, followed by a reprivatization process, which began at the end of the 1980s and is now reaching its conclusion at the beginning of the 21st century. Sections 2 to 5 of this paper review the evolution of the Portuguese State enterprise sector during these four periods. Section 6 presents some concluding remarks.