Elias Soukiazis

University of Coimbra | UC · Group of Monetary and Financial Studies

The process of a country's economic growth and development is a very complex phenomenon, influenced by numerous factors, which has attracted the attention of researchers and policymakers over time. Several studies highlight the important role of entrepreneurship on economic growth, by introducing innovative technologies, creating new products, prom...

Sustainable entrepreneurship links entrepreneurial activities to the achievement of sustainable development in its three dimensions: economic prosperity, social equity, and environmental protection. This paper aims to explain the process of sustainable entrepreneurship, by providing empirical evidence on the interconnections between entrepreneurial...

Literature has primarily studied the impact of social-economic factors on the recycling propensity of municipal areas, but it has given little attention to the role played by political factors. This study uses the 2009–2017 data on Portuguese municipalities to analyze the impact of social-economic and political factors on recycling, and by estimati...

Sustainable entrepreneurship links entrepreneurial activities to the achievement of sustainable development in its three dimensions: economic prosperity, social equity, and environmental protection. This paper aims to explain the process of sustainable entrepreneurship, by providing empirical evidence on the interconnections between entrepreneurial...

The aim of this study is to analyze the circular interconnections between recycling, renewable energy and economic development. A multi-equation system is employed, where recycling and renewable energy (among other growth-inducing factors) are assumed to be important for promoting sustainable development (as provided by the Human Development Index)...

This paper explores the driving forces behind household waste generation in the Portuguese municipalities. The focus of the analysis is to empirically test the validity of the waste Kuznets curve (wKc) hypothesis, which postulates an inverted U-shaped relationship between waste generation and economic activity. Panel data is collected for 307 munic...

Waste management and recycling are fundamental issues for policy makers to protect the environment. Although these topics have been broadly studied at country-level, studies addressing sub-national units are still limited. This research aims to contribute to this field by analyzing the waste generation and recycling processes across the Portuguese...

The aim of this paper is to explain the determinants of longevity in 20 European Union countries for which comparable data are available for the period 1990–2016. We use a health equation to explain life expectancy at age 65 for total population considering socioeconomic factors, population structure, health resources, lifestyles and environment as...

This paper explores the driving forces behind household’s waste generation among the Portuguese municipalities. The focus of the analysis is to empirically test the validity of the waste Kuznets curve (wKc) hypothesis, which postulates an inverted U-shaped relationship between waste generation and economic activity. A panel data is collected for 30...

The aim of this study is to test empirically the determinants of entrepreneurship (overall and sectoral) in the Portuguese economy. Despite the methodological limitations inherent in such studies, which are mainly due to the incompatibility of some series and the temporal limitations of some data, this challenge is fuelled by the novelty of a cross...

Although the relationship between renewable energy and economic performance has attracted the interest of researchers in recent years, most of the analysis has focused on economic growth, which does not reflect the quality of standards of living. We employ a different approach measuring the impact of renewable energy consumption on the Human Develo...

The aim of this study is to analyze the impact of a variety of factors on the total entrepreneurial activity rate (TEA). A panel data approach of 26 developed countries was used to evaluate the simultaneous influence of the factors on TEA (2004–2011). Our findings show an inverse relationship between TEA and the initial capital effort; a direct rel...

The aim of this study is to analyse the circular linkages between recycling and economic development, where renewable energy plays an additional role in this process. We use a two-equation model, which characterizes a cumulative causation process with feedback effects, where recycling (among other growth inducing factors) is assumed to be important...

As a multidisciplinary concept, entrepreneurship can be explained by numerous factors. Therefore, the aim of this study is to test empirically the determinants of entrepreneurship (overall and sectoral) in the Portuguese economy. Despite the methodological limitations inherent in such studies, which are mainly due to the incompatibility of some ser...

This paper applies an extended growth model to the Slovak economy and explains the potential pitfalls that a transition economy faces on the way to converging with other advanced European countries. Our empirical analysis shows that Slovakia grew at a higher rate than that allowed by the balance-of-payments equilibrium rate and that this is consist...

The debate between the skill-biased technological change (SBTC) approach and the international trade (IT) explanation to obtain the best explanation for the wage gap between skilled and unskilled workers continues. In this article, we divide the Portuguese manufacturing industries into high-tech and low-tech and study the approach that best justifi...

This paper uses an alternative growth approach in line with Thirlwall´s model in order to predict economic growth in Greece taking into account internal and external imbalances caused by public deficit/debt and lack of trade competitiveness. It is shown that the simple Thirlwall´s Law (given by the product of the ratio of the income elasticities of...

The balance-of-payments (BoP) can act as a constraint on the output growth rate because it limits the growth of demand. This article focuses on verifying whether the hypothesis that BoP constrains growth is suitable for explaining the growth performance of several transition economies in Central and Eastern Europe that joined the European Union aft...

This work uses a simultaneous equation system approach to analyze the relationship between the management and business quality of companies and their market price quality. Using panel data we found that both the management and the business quality of companies positively influence the market price quality of the studied American companies. Addition...

This work uses a simultaneous equation system approach to analyze the relationship between the management and business quality of companies and their market price quality. Using panel data we found that both the management and the business quality of companies positively influence the market price quality of the studied American companies. Addition...

The aim of this presentation is to analyze the impact of a variety of factors on the total entrepreneurial activity rate (TEA). A panel data approach of 26 developed countries was used to evaluate the simultaneous influence of the factors on TEA (2004–2011). Our findings show an inverse relationship between TEA and the initial capital effort; a dir...

The aim of this study is to analyse the impact of economic and institutional factors, formal and informal, in the entrepreneurial activity of nations, particularly in Total Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA) within the institutional theory of North. In order to evaluate the simultaneous influence of economic and institutional factors on the entrepreneu...

The aim of this paper is to investigate the causes of the poor growth performance in Italy and the responsibility of the euro for this crisis. The theoretical approach applied is based on the balance-of-payments constraint hypothesis (known as Thirlwall’s law), adapted to include internal and external imbalances. Our empirical analysis shows that b...

Whilst multidisciplinary concept and usually connoted with innovation, entrepreneurship is likely to be explained by several factors. In fact, this work aims to test, in an exploratory perspective, the determinants of entrepreneurship (global and sectoral) in the Portuguese economy. To this end, we propose the estimation of some time series models....

The objective of this presentation is to analyse the impact of economic and institutional factors, formal and informal, in the entrepreneurial activity of nations, particularly in Total Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA). In order to evaluate the simultaneous influence of economic and institutional factors on the entrepreneurial activity, a multiple re...

The Subjective Well-Being status has gained a growing research attention in social sciences during the last decades. The attention given by the academic world to this issue has been followed by the community in general. This line of research is still undeveloped in Portugal, and therefore needs further investigation. The purpose of this study is to...

Within the institutional theory of North (1990, 2005), the objective of this study is to analyse the impact of economic and institutional factors, formal and informal, in the entrepreneurial activity of nations, particularly in Total Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA). In order to evaluate the simultaneous influence of economic and institutional factor...

Thirlwall's Law (Thirlwall, 1979) considers that growth can be constrained by the balance-of-payments when the current account is in permanent deficit. The law focuses on external imbalances as impediments to growth and does not consider the case where internal imbalances emerging from budget deficits or public debt can also constrain growth. The r...

Several sales models for a consumer's goods manufacturer firm are developed and tested. A panel data approach is used to model aggregate sales across three countries, using mainly price and trade investment. We show how useful can be different panel data models to understand sales across relatively heterogeneous markets, by comparing the fixed effe...

The present study aims at veriffing whether the balance-of-payments constrained growth approach is suitable for explaining the Slovak growth performance after 1993. We use Thirlwall's Law to predict actual growth of the Slovak economy based on the estimation of the income elasticities of demand for imports and exports, respectively. The income elas...

This special issue includes a number of selected papers that have been presented in the 13th annual INFER (International Network for Economic Research) conference held at the University of East London on the 12th and 13th of September, 2011. The selected papers have in common that they take into account the recent economic crisis, but analyse it fr...

Thirlwall's Law considers that growth can be constrained by the balance-of-payments when the current account is in permanent deficit. The Law focuses on external imbalances as impediments to growth and does not consider the case where internal imbalances (budget deficits or public debt) can also constrain growth. The recent European public debt cri...

Some countries of the Euro-zone have experienced a declining economic growth more pronounced in the last recent years, like Italy. The aim of this paper is to investigate the causes of the poor growth performance in Italy and the responsibility of the Euro for this crisis. The theoretical approach applied is based on the balance-of-payments constra...

The aim of this paper is to analyze the links between health status, education and economic growth in Portugal. Focus is given to the achievements made in infant mortality rate which represents the most significant reduction among the OECD countries in the last decades. While this very positive performance is a direct consequence of the investments...

Thirlwall’s Law (Thirlwall 1979) considers that growth can be constrained by the balance-of-payments when the current account is in permanent deficit. The Law focuses on external imbalances as impediments to growth and does not consider the case where internal imbalances (budget deficits or public debt) can also constrain growth. The recent Europea...

Thirlwall’s Law considers that growth can be constrained by the balance of payments when the current account is in permanent deficit.* The law focuses on external imbalances as impediments to growth and does not consider the case where internal imbalances (budget deficits or public debt) can also constrain growth. The recent European public debt cr...

The present study aims to verify whether the balance-of-payments-constrained growth approach is suitable for explaining the Portuguese growth performance during the past decades. To smooth cyclical variations, 15-year overlapping periods are considered in the computation of "Thirlwall's law," assuming that income elasticity of imports is either con...

While neoclassical growth theory does not consider external demand to be a constraint to growth, the Keynesian approach emphasizes that demand forces are actually the key factors determining growth. In this paper, an attempt is made to introduce the balance-of-payments constraint hypothesis into the neoclassical growth model through a consideration...

The aim of this paper is to explain growth performance in Portugal in the last decades through a multi-equation system with cumulative growth characteristics. The model uses a demand-orientated approach to determine the main relationships which explain growth through a virtuous cycle. The idea is to identify the driving forces of growth with causal...

Thirlwall’s Law considers that growth can be constrained by the balance-of-payments when the current account is in permanent deficit. The Law focuses on external imbalances as impediments to growth and does not consider the case where internal imbalances (budget deficits or public debt) can also constrain growth. The recent European public debt cri...

The aim of this study is to analyze the impact of health factors on economic growth and convergence across the Portuguese regions at the district level. Like education, health factors could be important for explaining the growth performance of regions through the increase in labour productivity. Therefore, human capital can be seen in a broader per...

Both the neoclassical approach associated to the Solow’s exogenous growth model and the endogenous growth theories have been criticised for being more consistent with a closed economy. In these approaches, the effects of international trade on growth and the trade deficits are not explicitly considered as impediments to economic expansion. The aim...

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This paper examines the importance of tourism as a conditioning factor for improving the host population's standard of living. In so doing, the well-known conditional convergence approach of Barro and Sala-i-Martin is used to test for convergence in per capita income among four Southern European countries (Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain), each w...

This article explains the differences in growth rates between the cohesion countries of the EU: Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece. Employing a decomposition growth approach, it is found that the main driver of growth differences lies in productivity. The remarkably higher Irish growth rates in the 1990s are sourced to greater productivity growth...

The role of tourism is of vital economic importance, particularly for small countries with a privileged geographical location and favourable weather conditions. This paper examines the importance of tourism as a conditioning factor for higher regional growth in Portugal by employing the conditional convergence hypothesis of Barro and Sala-i-Martin,...

This paper examines the convergence process across countries for the period 1980-2000, giving special attention to the role of human capital as a conditioning factor. The originality of the study is in the use of new proxies for human capital, such as publications and patents ratio and the patents/articles ratio which reflect the efficiency of...

This paper examines the convergence process among the Brazilian states using different concepts of convergence and giving special attention to the role of human capital as the conditioning factor to convergence. Different measures of human capital are used in the estimation of the convergence equations and the results show that they play a signific...

The aim of this paper is twofold: in first place we want to ascertain if there is any difference in the convergence process between the 'Littoral' (coastal) and the 'Interior' (inland) areas in Portugal in terms of per capita income. In second place, we examine the relevance of Structural Funds (European Regional Development Funds) as conditioning...

The European Central Bank (ECB) monetary policy has been criticised for giving more attention to price stabilisation in Europe rather than encouraging higher growth and employment. It is now largely accepted that the Maastricht norms reinforced by the Stability Pact have imposed serious macroeconomic constraints on economic performance by not takin...

The ECB monetary policy has been criticised for giving more attention to price stabilisation in Europe rather than encouraging higher growth and employment. It is now largely accepted that the Maastricht norms and the Stability Pact have imposed serious macroeconomic constraints on economic performance without taking into account specific problems...

The tourism activity in Portugal is responsible for about 8% of the national product and employs 10% of the total labour force. In addition, the receipts from tourism contribute substantially in financing the current account deficit of the balance of payments in this country. These are convincing arguments to justify the analysis of the determinant...

Com este trabalho pretende-se testar a validade da Lei de Verdoorn, no caso da economia portuguesa a nível regional (NUTs II) e sectorial, no período 1995 a 1999. Por outro lado, verificar de que forma novas variáveis adicionadas (fluxos de mercadorias, acumulação de capital e concentração) influenciam o comportamento desta relação. Tenciona-se, as...

O presente estudo pretende explicar a convergência regional em Portugal a nível de NUTS III, para o rendimento per capita e a produtividade. Utiliza-se uma metodologia alternativa baseada na análise de dados em painel e que contempla as diferenças regionais. Testam-se os conceitos de convergência absoluta e condicionada e a importância de alguns fa...

The present paper focuses on the analysis of growth sources in Portugal, Greece and Ireland explaining the differences in economic performance between these three countries which constitute the “cohesion group” in the EU. During the nineties, Ireland has made a remarkable economic recovery, converging rapidly to the richest countries of the EU, whi...

The aim of this paper is to explain regional convergence in Portugal, at Nuts III level, in terms of per capita income and productivity. In doing so, we employ an alternative estimation approach based on panel data analysis that allows for individual differences across regions, avoiding with this way the omitted variable bias occurred in single cro...

This paper attempts to measure the direct effects of the Maastricht criteria and the Stability Pact on growth and unemployment in the EU countries, and covers the period 1980-2001. The evidence from a panel empirical analysis suggests that growth was negatively influenced by the imposition of the Maastricht criteria, showing a fall of 0.5 percentag...

There is a great interest in the EU for measuring disparities between countries and between regions. The preoccupation for sustainable regional growth, especially for the less developed economies is manifested earlier during the effort for the completion of the single market and more recently during the process which will establish the economic and...

The role of tourism gains fundamental importance especially for small countries with privilege geographical location and favourable weather conditions. This paper examines the importance of tourism as a conditioning factor for higher regional growth in Portugal by employing a convergence approach of the Barro and Sala-i-Martin type. The panel data...

The main purpose of this study is to search whether elections affect the economic performance of the EU(15) countries. It has been largely argued that elections induce political instability that influences the macroecomic outcomes of the national economies. Political changes through national elections, ideology of the government with left-wing or r...

The aim of this study is to explore different approaches which are commonly used to measure productivity convergence among the EU countries. The analysis starts with the familiar approaches of σ and β convergence (absolute and conditional) using a cross section framework. The conditional β-convergence tests the hypothesis that the convergence in pr...

The present paper focuses on the analysis of growth sources in Portugal, Greece and Ireland explaining the differences in economic performance between these three countries which constitute the "cohesion group" in the EU. During the nineties, Ireland has made a remarkable economic recovery, converging rapidly to the richest countries of the EU, whi...

The propose of this paper is twofold: firstly, to identify the sources of growth in Ireland and Portugal, and secondly, to explain the remarkable recovery of the Irish economy, especially in the nineties, and what are the lessons for Portugal from that positive experience in Ireland. The sources of growth can be identified by a decomposition approa...

The ECB monetary policy has been criticised for giving more attention to price stabilisation in Europe rather than encouraging higher growth and employment. It is now largely accepted that the Maastricht norms and the Stability Pact have imposed serious macroeconomic constraints on economic performance without taking into account specific problems...

The neoclassical growth theory does not attribute any special importance to external demand as a constraint to growth. When an external shock occurs, it is the price system that adjusts to bring the economy back to equilibrium. The Keynesian approach emphasizes that demand forces, especially external demand through exports, are the key factors dete...

Abstract This paper uses the cumulative ,causation approach ,to predict ,actual growth ,in the EU(15) countries over the period 1981-2004. The cumulative ,causation principle underlines the importance ,of demand ,factors as the ,driving forces of growth ,and assumes,that productive factors are endogenous to the ,growth ,process. A special character...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the importance of the tourism activity as a conditioning factor in improving the population's standards of living. In doing so, the well known conditional convergence approach of the Barro and Sala-i-Martin type is used to test for convergence in per capita income among four Southern European countries (Greec...

Abstract The main scope of this survey is to explain the differences between,three main approaches which,attempt to explain ,the convergence ,or divergence ,pattern in per ,capita income ,or productivity level, among different economies. In section 1 three main theoretical approaches are brought together to explain,the convergence,phenomenon:,the n...

The present study aims to verify whether the balance-of-payments constrained growth approach is suitable for explaining the Portuguese growth performance during the last decades. For that, we adopt “Thirlwall’s Law” that predicts actual growth by the ratio of the exports growth relative to the income-elasticity of the demand for imports. The income...

The purpose of this study is to analyse the determinants of life expectancy as proxy for health status of the OECD countries‘ population. A production function of health is used to explain life expectancy at birth for total and ageing population and according to gender. Socio-economic factors, health resources and lifestyles are defined as the main...

This paper examines the convergence process in Brazil over the period of 1985-2004, giving a special attention to the role of human capital as a conditioning factor to convergence. It examines how different levels of human capital influence growth in different regions of Brazil. Different measures of human capital are used in the growth regressions...

The propose of this paper is to test the convergence hypothesis using an alternative approach by examining directly the time series properties of the per capita income variable among the EU countries. This approach has been developed recently in the attempt to understand regional differentials in the living standards among different economies. This...