Upon the initiative of the Socialist Party and the Left Bloc party, a National Working Group was created to assess the sustainability of Portugal’s external debt, composed of both economists of those political parties and independent researchers. Among the latter were Miguel St. Aubyn, Paulo Trigo Pereira and Ricardo Cabral, associate researchers at Institute of Public Policy (IPP). From this Working Group, constituted in the first half of 2016, resulted a Report subscribed by the following authors: Francisco Louçã (ISEG-UL); João Galamba (PS); Miguel St. Aubyn (ISEG-UL, IPP); Paulo Trigo Pereira (ISEG-UL, IPP); Pedro Filipe Soares (BE); Pedro Gil (FEP-UP); Ricardo Cabral (U. Madeira, IPP); Ricardo Paes Mamede (ISCTE-IUL).
This initiative is part of a broad discussion that has had and will take place in the public debate on the Portuguese economy around the different perspectives and strategies for the management of the country’s high external debt. In conjunction with another recent contribution on this subject, the Policy Paper “Which paths to the Portuguese Public Debt?” published by the Platform for Sustainable Growth (see here), the Report was presented at a hearing of the Commission on Budget and Finance. at the Parliament, on October 10, 2017.
On this day, IPP joins this important initiative to debate the future paths of the Portuguese economy, publishing the final version of this Report, for easier consultation by those who are interested in this important discussion.