The Timing and Sequencing of Trade Liberalization Policies: Portugal 1948-1986

• Autor(a) principal: Braga de Macedo, Jorge
• Data de Publicação: 1988
• Outros Autores: Corado, Cristina, Lopes Porto, Manuel
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/84562

This study covers the major economic and trade policy developments in Portugal since World War II: 1948-86 (chapters I and II). It identifies the most near-to-liberalisation episodes in Portugal: 1970-74 and 1977-80. We describe the economic and political environment, trade policies and accompanying policies which impinge on the sustainability of the episodes (chapters III and IV). The volume ends by drawing ten comparative inferences and four lessons from the Portuguese experience on the timing and sequencing of trade policies. We defend the lack of political commitment and often, outright contradictory policies before Portugal's entry into the EC in 1986. The closer-to-liberalisation, but short-lived episodes are those identified with the "Caetano's spring" and its aftermath before the revolution and the period coinciding with the first liberalisation-cum-stabilisation package and its aftermath, after the revolution. In both episodes there was no clear political commitment to trade liberalisation, which was not a first objective and never fully designed. Thus trade and domestic policies were generally inconsistent. Our ten inferences and four lessons from these episodes are directly relevant to the third episode starting in 1986. However, EC entry and the 1992 market implies, not only more profound changes than EFTA implied in the sixties and seventies, but also a greater policy interdependence with the other European countries, with the inherent costs of inappropriate policies. Only a non-defensive, active response to increased structural interdependence may prove the new episode sustainable.