Portugal in the sixties: accelerated economic growth and the role of the relationship with the colonies

Abstract

The last decade has been crucial to the evolution of the Portuguese society. Acceleration of economic growth, structural change, massive emigration and colonial war were the main features of this période. One interesting aspect of the situation is the fact that a small and poor country like Portugal has been able to afford the costs of the war and, still, achieve a significant growth perfomance.
How did it come about that Portugal did succeed in having right rates of growth during the 1960's despite the colonial war? Can it be explained by the economic relationships with the colonies? These are the main questions analysed in the text. It is argued that these relationships are not the major explanatory elements, and that certain changes in the domestic structure of production and consumption were probably more important.