On April 3, 2024, at 6pm, the School of Economics and Management of the University of Minho (EEG) hosted the debate and presentation of the book "As Causas do Atraso Português", by Nuno Palma (Full Professor at the University of Manchester, UK).
The session was attended by the book's author and João Cerejeira, who commented on the book. The moderator was Sílvia Sousa. The opening session was given by the President of the School of Economics and Management, Luís Aguiar-Conraria.
This initiative was part of the EEGConnect series of seminars, as part of EEG's transversal skills development program, EEGenerating Skills.
Nuno Palma is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of Manchester and Director of the Arthur Lewis Lab for Comparative Development at the same university. He is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, and at the Centre for Economic Policy Research, London. He has won several international awards, including the Stiglitz Prize, awarded by the International Economic Association. He has a PhD from the London School of Economics and specializes in economic history and macroeconomics. He has published in prestigious international journals related to these fields.
Book synopsis
Why is Portugal today a rich country at world level, but poor in the European context? What are the causes and historical context of our backwardness? How did we get here, and what can be done to improve our situation? These are the questions I try to answer in this book.
Almost all analyses of the state of the country made in the public square are short-sighted: since they are unaware of the historical depth of our backwardness, they make systematic errors and announce useless, if not harmful, diagnoses. Those who give speeches also often have a marked political bias and fail to declare their conflicts of interest. [...] In fact, in order to reflect properly on the present and possible futures, we have to start by understanding our past. For a better future to be possible, we have to consider in a thoughtful way the factors that explain - and those that don't - the country's backwardness. This book aims to do just that.
Registration here: https://forms.office.com/e/xuz7w954Gu
