Capital inflows had masked Portugal’s underlying demographic and growth deficits

Evidence

Demography compounds these problems. Portugal is ranked 178th out of 230 countries in population growth and 195th in births. The median age of the country is forty, and 18 percent of the population is already over sixty-five years old. Before the crisis these things could be ignored because capital flows from the European core to the periphery masked the chronic lack of growth in these countries. But once those flows stopped in 2010 in a context of market worries about Greek and Irish indebtedness, what was not a problem before—long-term growth dynamics—suddenly became one. After all, if the underlying dynamics are not there to support growth, then no amount of austerity will reduce the debt accrued. — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 194

Categorization

• DEFINE: Presents the causal logic by which previously tolerable long-term growth dynamics become crises once capital flows reverse.
• XREF: connects to: Portugal’s export decline produced slow growth and heavy debt before 2008 — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 193; Capital-account liberalization creates surplus-deficit imbalances and boom-bust cycles — Natascha van der Zwan, Making Sense of Financialization, 34; The nation “Portugal” masks a mix of supranational capitalist forces (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Capital-account liberalization creates surplus-deficit imbalances and boom-bust cycles #corroborates (0.85) — Natascha van der Zwan, Making Sense of Financialization, 34
• Portugal’s export decline produced slow growth and heavy debt before 2008 #qualifies (0.80) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 193
• The nation “Portugal” masks a mix of supranational capitalist forces #complicates (0.75)
• The historical agent ‘Portugal’ was really a mix of national and supranational forces #complicates (0.75) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 521