Portugal and the end (?) of economic growth – Observer
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The economic is commonly associated with the evolution of the population’s standard of living. Historically, and practically asserting to our days, the industrial revolution until our days, seems legitimate since the revolution of some that the standard of living of the generations after the generation would be, except for periods marked by increasing wars and later generations. financial crises. So, like our standard of living, average by income per capita, is superior to the generations of our parents and ours, also the living standards of our children and grandchildren would be safe from our superior grandparents. In other words, economic growth and, with it, the improvement in the population’s standard of living”, forever “guaranteed”…
The first question that arises in this context is therefore to look for this tendency.
The authors look for several in this regard, investigate the so-called “facts of growth”, or authors, in analysis, the factors that allow allowing such demonstration. One of the last works presented in this, by Charles I. Jones and Paul Romer (the latter one of the works awarded the “Nobel” in Economics in 2018), with particular emphasis on the intensification, at the international level, of the work of ideas, investment and trade, as one of the main drivers of growth. In this way, the increased flow of goods, ideas, financial movements and people through globalization and economic urbanization – has increased the extent of worker and consumer markets, promoting new opportunities for economic growth. Moreover, in the light of the most elementary principles of economic science, such a trend is not plausible with countries closed in on themselves. Ukraine, from the first financial war of 20 to the beginning of the crisis of February 20 of this year, through the crisis of this fourth crisis, until the beginning of the war in the fourth crisis in 2020. from Sars-Cov-2, it began as evidenced movements, economic and economic, that seem in view, a continuity of the geographical expansion of trade and investment flows on a global scale. The pace of globalization has slowed down, the footing will not be completely lost in what seemed to be an acquired principle, a few to be used, however, with the hypothesis of a new scenario that they called, very suggest, by “slowbalization”.
But the evolution recorded in some indicators in the recent past is mind-boggling. Thus, and according to the World Bank, the weight of trade in world GDP, which stood at 25% in 1970, peaked at 61% in 2008 and dropped to 56% in 2019, close to the values recorded in 2004 and 2005. On the other hand, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), which in 1970 stood at only 0.5% of GDP, reached 5.3% of world GDP in 2007, having seen a drop in the following years of higher volatility) , standing at 1.7% in 2019, in line with the value recorded in 1997.
We will be, in this economic environment, will define the secular commitment to a darker vision of our future that will eventually dictate the end of growth or the “economic stagnation of Robert Gordon for the USA from the prediction of the demographic winter “headwinds” and the dominant profile of the so-called “new technologies”?
No academic environment can identify several responses to this purpose, based on different theories and growth models. But this is not the path we intend to explore in this text. The important issue highlighted here is to find out to what extent it is possible to identify the exchanges (trade, investment, ideas) to increase the new patterns of specialization of different countries and regions and, consequently, “growth”. of GDP, despite the geopolitical barriers that current circumstances and the recent past have determined in the coming decades. A resistance approach to other factors explaining certain growth will be relevant, but growth will hardly be economic to the progressive slowdown of FDI and international trade.
Now, the end of globalization in terms that make no one in recent decades is not the prelude to the end of growth which – which – of the growth process – is, surely, to promote economic integration and, in particular, liberalization of the movements of factors – labor, capital, technology – among countries that institutionally and practically enshrine the defense of perennial and common values, such as individual rights and the international order. More economic in the European space, more economic freedom on the transatlantic axis and in countries that share such values will certainly be the paths for economic cooperation between relationships, regions and countries, for the consecration of the international environment that the project with the most vigorous importance of freedom for development and economic growth on a global scale.
However, for free expansion logos, especially for companies, from free enterprise, in the European space where Portugal is integrated, there are barriers that still remain from the factors, where evident initiatives abound that disrupt the free enterprise of trade and investment. In this sense, the challenge is only with the concept of economic activity, which is not to be confused with greater international integration, namely, with institutional plans and with the most diverse sectors of business flows, not with the most diverse sectors of business flows. . , but also investment, trans-European mergers and administration joint ventures as well as other companies of companies in which the strategic positioning acts as or intend to become. Ultimately, what is needed is the establishment of an institutional environment that allows for deeper relations between the different member states, thereby promoting greater mobility and a more efficient (and also more robust) allocation of resources. And, in this area, there is still a lot to be done, both at the European level and at the level of national authorities. The symbolic idea, we leave here a brief reference to the designation of designated societies, a good idea without visible practical results.
The Statute of the European Company (SE), contained in the Regulation of the European Union (EC) No. 2157/2001 of the Council, has a general character and is therefore applicable in all the Member States of the European Union. However, the aforementioned regulation has to be regulated by normative acts of law of the various members, which results in the establishment of normative solutions that end up hindering what should be institutionally promoted (in Portugal, the diplomas, however already with several changes, that that complement that Regulation are Decree-Law no. the National Legal Order Directive no. 2001/86/EC, of the Council, which in turn completes the company statute not concerning the involvement of European workers). However, according to the latest available data (dating back to 2018) there will be around 3,000 SEs constituted, 2/3 of which are in the Czech Republic, 491 in the Czech Republic and 140 in Slovakia. In no other state do 27 members find more than a hundred SEs constituted and, in Portugal, there are only 1 (one). Clearly, after 20 years, European society, entrepreneurs and workers seem to have been lacking for this initiative, which they are probably largely unaware of: national regulatory and administrative barriers? Lack of proper communication? Perhaps the absence of a tax statute of its own?…
Returning, to present, to the theme (threat) of the end of growth, this would certainly be more important for Portugal, a country, at the highest level of financing for Portugal, public debt at the level of the largest in Europe, also difficulties in the social state, such as disturbances the one they have recently observed clearly demonstrates. Communication certainly, economic communication, will promote, the construction of public information services and the economic administration of activities, efficient communication, promotion, economic promotion, also the need for reform of the State, regardless of the scope of its intervention, which will also be guidelines, and legitimately, determined by the policies and ideology of governments and their respective elected officials. And if it is true that almost no one in society questions the importance of the Portuguese state, from the outset in guaranteeing the means for universal access to health care, education and social assistance, it is no less true that, without growth, or with a newly created in recent decades, there will be growth, sooner or later, SNS, public school and social security that resists.
Economic, structural reforms, of course, and also “more Europe”, will be those unavoidable to place economic growth in Portugal, at the level of expectations that Suivon governments have been feeding in Portugal.