Seminários GEE
- Autor(es): Ana Fontoura Gouveia e João Carvalho
- Ano: 2025
Several countries established ambitious climate goals to tackle the climate emergency. To fulfill these goals, bold climate policies are needed, upholding the political commitments and effectively addressing climate change. Given that social resistance is seen as a deterrent for action, this research provides a contribution to policy makers wanting to boost support for climate policies. Relying on randomized control trials over different design options within the same climate instrument -- including green taxes, subsidies and regulations --, we show the importance of design features, namely relating to funding options and the overall tax burden. We also show that individual perceptions on climate change and climate policies are significantly associated with support, providing scope for government action also in this front. Taken together, these factors can be enough to sustain a supporting majority for all policies considered.
Climate policy is not fiscal policy: understanding attitudes towards climate action
- Autor(es): Rui Vigário, Matilde Alvim e Miguel Andrade
- Ano: 2025
The study examined the effects of the economic performance of Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom on Portuguese exports from the first quarter of 2003 to the second quarter of 2024. A series of econometric methodologies were utilized in the analysis, encompassing the Jarque-Bera test, panel unit root tests, Gregory-Hansen cointegration tests, error correction models, Granger causality tests, and impulse response functions. The objective of this comprehensive approach was to ascertain short-run and long-run relationships. The primary findings indicated a substantial long-term impact of German GDP on Portuguese exports, demonstrating the highest structural sensitivity. In contrast, the US exhibited the fastest dynamic adjustment speed (agility), while the effect of the UK's economy was smaller in magnitude and slower to correct, reflecting its vulnerability to structural shocks such as Brexit. The analysis at the sector level further indicated that various adjustment speeds were evident across export categories. The results of the study provide policymakers with a valuable set of information regarding the necessity of monitoring the macroeconomic situations of their major trading partners, building trade resilience, and formulating improved strategic plans.
Asymmetric Impacts: German, US, and UK Economic Performance on Portuguese Exports.pdf
- Autor(es): Alice Mantegazza e Edoardo Santiago Longo
- Ano: 2025
This paper investigates the impact of the 2014-2020 EU Cohesion Policy on regional economic growth in Portugal. Using a difference-in-differences approach combined with an event study framework, we exploit the variation in treatment across NUTS II regions to estimate both average and dynamic treatment effects on GDP per capita. The analysis reveals that treated regions experienced a statistically significant and economically meaningful increase in GDP per capita relative to control regions, with effects intensifying over time. Robustness checks - including placebo tests, exclusion of structural distinct regions, and specifications with relevant socioeconomic controls - support the validity of the identification strategy and the stability of the results. These findings contribute to the literature on EU regional policy effectiveness and underscore the role of targeted public investment in promoting economic convergence within member states.
The Impact of Cohesion Policy (2014–2020) on Economic Growth in Portugal
- Autor(es): Tiago Bernardino, Francesco Franco e Luís Teles Morais
- Ano: 2025
In low-fertility societies with regular immigration inflows of young workers, reducing immigration disproportionately raises dependency ratios as native populations shrink. This creates a convex policy frontier: restricting migration raises fiscal costs at an increasing rate. We quantify this mechanism using a population model combined with novel estimates of immigrants’ fiscal contributions in Euro area countries. Eliminating immigration raises the fiscal burden of aging by 16%, while doubling inflows reduces it by only 9%. The convexity generates large cross-country differences in fiscal gains from immigration, complicating common European policy design. Increasing fertility does not provide comparable relief.
The Costs of Building Walls: Immigration and the Fiscal Burden of Aging in Europe
Apresentação 108.º Seminário GEE/GPEARI - The Costs of Building Walls: Immigration and the Fiscal Burden of Aging in Europe.pdf
- Autor(es): David Leite Neves
- Ano: 2025
I present evidence that firms serve as tax-free consumption vehicles. Drawing on a unique combination of data from an electronic invoicing program in Portugal (e-Fatura), I show that individuals who control firms shift 36% of their monthly personal expenditures to firms and 31% of their household expenditures. The effects are driven by owner-managers of small closely held firms through expenditure categories on the border between business and final consumption but are widespread among business managers across the whole income distribution. My results suggest that the government revenue losses due to consumption through the firm amount to 1% of GDP. Reallocating the tax savings and personal expenditures hidden within firms to the reported household income of business managers increases the Gini by one percentage point and the top 1% income share by half a percentage point.
- Autor(es): Mathilde Muñoz, Antoine Levy e Salla Kalin
- Ano: 2025
This paper investigates whether and why pensioners move across borders in response to tax rate differentials. In 2013, retirees relocating to Portugal became eligible to a full tax exemption of foreign-source pensions. Contrary to the broadly held belief that seniors "age in place", we find substantial international mobility responses to the reform, concentrated among wealthy and educated pensioners in higher-tax origin countries. The implied migration elasticity of the stock of foreign pensioners to the net-of-tax rate is large (between 1.5 and 2) and increases at longer horizons. Tax-induced retirement migration clusters in space, and exhibits peer effects, amplification, and hysteresis patterns consistent with agglomeration through endogenous amenities. We show such forces theoretically and empirically have significant implications for optimal tax rates, and for the limited efficacy of unilateral policy responses to tax competition, like the source-based taxation of pensions.
- Autor(es): Sónia Cabral, Paulo Júlio, José R. Maria e Sharmin Sazedj
- Ano: 2025
O Políticas em Análise do Boletim Económico de dezembro do Banco de Portugal dedica-se ao estudo do imposto sobre o rendimento das pessoas coletivas (IRC) em Portugal. É abordada a evolução do imposto, incluindo uma comparação internacional, bem como uma análise dos benefícios fiscais e da incidência do IRC sobre empresas com caraterísticas diferentes. Adicionalmente, utiliza um modelo dinâmico de equilíbrio geral para estimar o impacto macroeconómico de uma redução na taxa efetiva de IRC.
Políticas em Análise “A tributação sobre o rendimento das empresas em Portugal”, do Boletim Económico do Banco de Portugal de dezembro de 2024
- Autor(es): João Amador, Alexandre Carvalho, Ana Filipa Correia e Joana Garcia.
- Ano: 2025
O Tema em Destaque do Boletim Económico de dezembro estuda a ligação entre a fragmentação crescente da economia mundial nos últimos anos e a evolução do comércio externo português. Em primeiro lugar, discute-se o aumento do protecionismo a nível global e analisa-se a evolução das barreiras ao comércio português nesse contexto. Em segundo lugar, avalia-se o papel que as considerações geopolíticas têm tido na configuração das importações portuguesas. Este exercício procura compreender até que ponto há sinais de uma maior sensibilidade das importações à distância geopolítica face a Portugal.
Tema em destaque “O comércio internacional português e a fragmentação da economia mundial”, do Boletim Económico do Banco de Portugal de dezembro de 2024
Apresentação 104.º Seminário GEE/GPEARI: O comércio internacional português e a fragmentação da economia mundial.pdf
- Autor(es): Miguel Faria-e-Castro, Pascal Paul e Juan M. Sánchez
- Ano: 2025
The authors develop a simple model of concentrated lending where lenders have incentives for evergreening loans by offering better terms to firms that are close to default. They detect such lending behavior using loan-level supervisory data for the United States. Banks that own a larger share of a firm’s debt provide distressed firms with relatively more credit at lower interest rates. Building on this empirical validation, we incorporate the theoretical mechanism into a dynamic heterogeneous-firm model to show that evergreening affects aggregate outcomes, resulting in lower interest rates, higher levels of debt, and lower productivity.
- Autor(es): Ana Martins, João Pereira dos Santos e Fernando Pozzobon
- Ano: 2025
The authors exploit the assignment mechanism of the APOIAR Program, a generous initiative designed to support firms during the COVID-19 pandemic, to provide causal evidence on the impact of grants on firm performance in times of crisis. Using a regression discontinuity design and drawing on a combination of administrative datasets, they find that eligible firms experienced a short-term increase in profitability in 2021, although these effects did not persist into 2022. No significant differences were detected in revenue growth or cost reduction, indicating that the increase in profitability was due to the subsidy. Firms allocated part of the support to rental payments and office supplies, including modest investments in digitalization.
