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

Costa, Leonor Freire; Palma, Nuno; Reis, Jaime

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/29754

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Authors

Costa, Leonor Freire

Palma, Nuno

Reis, Jaime

Abstract(s)

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

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/29754

Citation

Costa, Leonor Freire; Nuno Palma and Jaime Reis .(2013). “The great escape? The contribution of the Empire to Portugal’s economic growth, 1500-1800”. UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III DE MADRID - DEPARTAMENTO DE HISTORIA ECONÓMICA E INSTITUCIONES, Working Papers in Economic History, Number 13/2013. (Search PDF in 2023).