Trade, Integration and Growth: the Portuguese Experience

Abstract

Neste artigo são estudadas as relações entre comércio internacional, integração e crescimento, à luz da experiência portuguesa de integração na União Europeia. Construindo modelos gravitacionais, investiga-se a influência da dimensão tanto dos países exportadores como importadores, bem como do seu processo de integração, sobre o volume do seu comércio, a dois níveis distintos. Por um lado, considera-se o comércio bilateral entre Portugal e a CE-12, nomeadamente as exportações portuguesas. Por outro lado, analisam-se blocos comerciais, ressaltando o carácter de bloco comercial por excelência da CE-12. O estudo empírico — painel com efeitos fixos — em geral confirma as previsões teóricas.

Dans cet article on met en rapport le commerce international, l’intégration et la croissance, à la lumière de l’expérience portugaise d’intégration dans l’Union Européene. En utilizant des modèles gravitacionaux, on recherche l’influence de la dimension des pays exportateurs et des pays importateurs, aussi que de sa intégration, sur le volume de son commerce, et ça selon deux perspectifs. D’abord, on étude le commerce bilatéral, c’est à dire, des exportations portugaises pour la CE-12. D’autre part, on analyse des blocs commerciaux, parmi lesquels la CE-12 apparaît comme le plus parfait. Les donnés empiriques son la confirmation des postulats théoriques.

This paper studies the links between trade, integration and growth through the mirror of the Portuguese experience of integration in the European Union. A gravity model framework is used to investigate the influence of both exporting and importing countries dimension and of their integration over the volume of trade at two different levels. First, the bilateral trade between Portugal and EC-12 is analised, namely Portuguese exporting performance. Then this work focuses on trade within regional trading blocs. Here EC-12 is compared with two other country groups and is proved to perform better as a natural trading bloc. The theoretical predictions are generally confirmed by the empirical study, carried out through pooled least squares with fixed effects.