- Número: 177
- Autor(es): Gabriel Osório de Barros
- Mês: Julho
- Ano: 2023
Este GEE Paper procura oferecer uma avaliação abrangente do potencial e dos desafios da Inteligência Artificial (IA), com um foco particular em Portugal no contexto da União Europeia (UE). Com base em contextos globais e da UE, o estudo identifica as aplicações e a influência transformadora da IA em vários sectores, como a educação, a saúde, o turismo, a indústria, os serviços financeiros ou o e-governo. Também analisa as implicações éticas, sociais e legais da adoção generalizada da IA, incluindo preocupações com a privacidade de dados e a necessidade de supervisão humana.
O trabalho analisa a posição e as políticas atuais da UE sobre IA. Reconhecendo as oportunidades de Portugal, o estudo inclui recomendações estratégicas para fomentar a educação e a formação em IA, promover a investigação e desenvolvimento, apoiar startups e empresas de IA, garantir o uso ético da IA e incentivar a cooperação internacional.
As implicações dessas estratégias vão além do avanço tecnológico, tocando em questões sociais, económicas e filosóficas mais amplas. O futuro da IA também é abordado, reconhecendo tanto o seu potencial quanto os desafios inerentes à regulamentação deste campo em rápida evolução.
Embora este trabalho procure analisar a IA, de forma geral e no contexto de Portugal, está sujeito a limitações. À medida que o panorama da IA continua a evoluir, também as oportunidades e desafios que apresenta vão mudando, exigindo estudo contínuo e elaboração proativa de políticas.
O estudo conclui com uma reflexão sobre o papel da humanidade num mundo cada vez mais automatizado, sublinhando a importância de equilibrar a integração da IA com a preservação dos valores humanos.
- Número: 176
- Autor(es): Anna Bernard, Rahim Lila e Joana Silva
- Mês: Julho
- Ano: 2023
R&D tax credits, by stimulating private sector innovation, can play a key role in promoting
employment and firm performance. This paper examines the program impact on the trajectory
of firms in terms of technology adoption, firm performance and workforce composition, and
the extent to which it depends on the size of the targeted firms. It uses rich longitudinal microdata
on innovation, firms and their workers. Combining matching with a staggered adoption
differences-in-differences, we show that tax credits increase investment in R&D-related
activities while funds are being received, but not thereafter. Productivity and efficiency (but
not employment) increase in large firms. These effects are driven by structural changes, both
in terms of the increased share of skilled individuals within the firm (keeping the overall
employment level constant) and enhanced technological adoption.
- Número: 175
- Autor(es): Natália Barbosa e Ana Paula Faria
- Mês: Julho
- Ano: 2023
Productivity disparities in the European regions tend to persist. In order to understand the
underlying sources of this phenomenon we assess the importance of science and regional
innovation modes on firms’ productivity growth on a sample of 150,712 firms across 161 NUTSII
European regions, over the period 2012-2017. We find that science is a major source of firms’
productivity growth, and it has been particularly important to firms located in Southern Europe
and, to less extent, in Eastern EU regions, indicating that a science-push convergence process
is at work in the EU peripheral regions. Our findings also show that the fast-growing
productivity firms are those who benefit more from external knowledge and innovation. Growth
by imitation seems to be a viable strategy restricted to the slow-growing productivity firms.
These results help to conciliate contentious evidence regarding firms’ benefits from spillovers,
namely from scientific knowledge.
- Número: 174
- Autor(es): Tânia Pinto e Aurora Teixeira
- Mês: Julho
- Ano: 2023
The literature on the impact of research output on economic growth has been rapidly
expanding. However, the single growth processes of technological laggard countries and the
mediating roles of human capital and structural change have been overlooked.
Resorting to cointegration analyses and Granger causality tests for Portugal over the last
40 years (1980-2019) four main results are worth highlighting: (1) in the long-run, global and
hard sciences (life sciences, physical sciences, engineering and technology, social sciences)
research outputs are positively and significantly associated to economic growth; (2) in the
short-run, global, hard sciences and soft sciences (base clinical, pre-clinical and health, arts
and humanities) foster economic growth; (3) important (long and short-run) mismatches
between human capital and scientific production emerged, with the years of schooling
mitigating the positive impact of research output on economic growth; (4) structural change
processes favouring industry amplify the positive (long-run) association and (short-run) impact
of research output on economic growth.
- Número: 173
- Autor(es): Inês Ferraz Teixeira, Aurora Teixeira e Luís Delfim Santos
- Mês: Julho
- Ano: 2023
The present study analyses the impact of subsidies to Research and Development (R&D),
more specifically, the impact of QREN (Quadro de Referência Estratégico Nacional)’s Sistema
de Incentivos à Investigação e Desenvolvimento Tecnológico nas Empresa (SI I&DT QREN),
on the performance of firms.
A relatively wide range of studies explores the relationship between subsidies to R&D and
firms’ performance. Nevertheless, no consensus has been reached. Furthermore, the literature
that analyses the impact of R&D subsidies in non-market-centred and moderate innovative
economies like Portugal is quite scarce and limited.
The information used in this empirical study concerns the period between 2008-2017, and
it was collected from the Operational Competitiveness Programme (COMPETE) included in
QREN and complemented with economic and financial data gathered from the Annual System
of Iberian Balances (SABI) database.
- Número: 172
- Autor(es): Gabriel Osório de Barros e Catarina Castanheira Nunes
- Mês: Abril
- Ano: 2023
A Autonomia Estratégica Aberta destaca a necessidade de equilibrar a abertura e a autossuficiência em áreas estratégicas, visando aumentar a independência e a resiliência dos países. No contexto da União Europeia (UE), este conceito é crucial para garantir a segurança e defesa e a resiliência das cadeias de abastecimento em sectores críticos, como a energia, a alimentação, a saúde e a tecnologia digital, assegurando o funcionamento das economias e protegendo os interesses da UE numa economia global interligada e competitiva.
O presente GEE Paper analisa os principais desafios geopolíticos e impactos económicos, sociais e ambientais, com particular destaque para o sector da tecnologia digital na UE, considerando também as implicações para a governança global e a cooperação internacional. Aborda, em concreto, a importância de desenvolver uma atuação direcionada para a Autonomia Estratégica Aberta, incluindo medidas para fortalecer a segurança e defesa e a resiliência das cadeias de abastecimento, aumentar a produção e consumo de produtos estratégicos na UE e promover a Investigação e Desenvolvimento e a Inovação e, ainda, a tão importante colaboração internacional.
O estudo identifica os desafios e as oportunidades enfrentados pela UE no contexto da concorrência global por recursos e tecnologias, destacando a necessidade de diversificar cadeias de abastecimento, criar planos de contingência, estabelecer parcerias com países terceiros e investir em Investigação e Desenvolvimento (I&D) e em qualificações, visando alcançar um equilíbrio entre eficiência económica e resiliência geopolítica.
- Número: 171
- Autor(es): Ricardo Duque Gabriel
- Mês: Novembro
- Ano: 2022
Public procurement accounts for one third of government spending. In this paper, the author documents a new mechanism through which government procurement promotes firm growth: firms use procurement contracts to increase the amount of cash-flow based lending.
The paper uses Portuguese administrative data over 2009-2019 and exploit public contests as a source of quasi-exogenous variation in the award of procurement contracts. Winning an additional €1 from a procurement contract increases firm credit by €0.05 at lower interest rates. This finding highlights a mechanism through which future fiscal stimulus can impact the real economy today: procurement contracts increase firms’ net worth by increasing future cash-flows that can be used as collateral to ease borrowing constraints and boost corporate liquidity.
Consequently, this enhanced access to credit promotes higher investment and employment with these effects being more pronounced and persistent in smaller and financially constrained firms. At the aggregate level, the author empirically estimates that an additional €1 in public procurement increases regional output by €1.8 with the credit channel accounting for 10% of it.
- Número: 170
- Autor(es): Diana Bonfim | Cláudia Custódio | Clara Raposo
- Mês: Setembro
- Ano: 2022
We use variation in the access to a government credit certification program to estimate the financial and real effects of supporting small firms. This program has been implemented during the global financial crisis, but has remained active ever since, allowing us to analyze its effects both during recessions and recoveries. Eligible firms have access to government loan guarantees and a credit quality certification. We estimate real effects using a multidimensional regression discontinuity design. We find that eligible firms borrow more and at lower rates than non-eligible firms, allowing them to increase investment and employment during crises. Industry-level analysis shows reduced productivity heterogeneity in more exposed industries, which is consistent with improved credit allocation. However, when the economy is recovering the effects of the program are less pronounced and centered on the certification component.
- Número: 169
- Autor(es): João Capella-Ramos | Romina Guri
- Mês: Setembro
- Ano: 2022
The COVID-19 crisis has severely impacted firms across the world, with some showing greater resilience than others. Engaging in international markets, in particular, increases firms’ exposure to such a global adverse shock, while also providing firms with opportunities for resilience-enhancing responses to the crisis. Operating in a small open economy, Portuguese firms were particularly vulnerable to disruptions in international trade and global value chains. In this paper we investigate how Portuguese exporting firms have adapted their business activities on the back of the COVID-19 crisis, and whether these adaptations depended on their intrinsic characteristics, notably firm size. Furthermore, we analyse the role of government support measures taken in response to the COVID-19 crisis in the adaptation processes of both exporting and domestic firms. We use the recently available Fast and Exceptional Enterprise Survey – COVID-19 (‘Inquérito Rápido e Excecional às Empresas’, COVID-IREE) and complement it with balance sheet data from the Integrated Corporate Accounts System (‘Sistema de Contas Integradas das Empresas’, SCIE), covering a sample of approximately 7,000 Portuguese firms. The results suggest that exporting firms were more likely to adapt their business activities in the face of the COVID-19 crisis. We also found evidence that the adaptation processes of exporting firms tended to be multi-dimensional, operating through different adaptation mechanisms, and contingent upon firm size. The results also suggest that government support measures have enhanced the likelihood of both exporting and domestic firms to adapt, providing evidence of their effectiveness and highlighting the importance of firm-oriented policies that promote economic resilience.
- Número: 168
- Autor(es): Natália Barbosa
- Mês: Setembro
- Ano: 2022
This paper assesses the causal relationship between outward foreign direct investment (FDI) and various sides of firm performance, using micro data from Portuguese manufacturing firms during 2006-2012 and 2017-2020. Our analysis shows that the learning effects for Portuguese parent firms depend on the underlying outward FDI strategy. In particular, those learning effects seem to be mostly visible when firms engage in vertical outward FDI. Further, vertical or horizontal outward FDI appear to enhance the integration of Portuguese firms into the global economy through increased export intensity. Overall, the findings supports the argument that outward FDI can indeed be at root of upgrading performance and firm’s restructuring in a small, open and peripheral economy such as Portugal. Nonetheless, the capability to be resilient and deal with sudden and external shocks - such as COVID-19 pandemic - is not supported by the available preliminary data.
