The dairy sector in the Azores Islands: possibilities and main constraints towards increased added value

Technical NoteThe Azores archipelago is the most suitable region for dairy production in Portugal, representing 30% of the overall Portuguese dairy production. It has a production system characterized by an average milk yield of 6216 kg/cow/year, and the predominance of pasture-based feeding and cows that have longer productive lives and lower incidence of metabolic/production diseases, such as acidosis or mastitis. The biggest problem with the Azores Islands dairy sector is the cost of transport, as the main markets are located in continental Portugal, over 1500 km away, and local dairy products have to compete with dairy products produced in mainland Portugal and in the rest of the European Union. Herein, the evolution of the dairy sector in the Azores Islands from 2007 to 2017 is presented. A SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat) analysis was performed to find potential solutions to increase the value of the Azorean dairy sector. The most relevant solution considered was the valorization of the dairy production through three major aspects: higher milk quality, namely, better organoleptic properties; lower carbon footprint (not considering transport costs); and higher levels of animal welfare. Three examples are shown of such valorization: protected denomination of origin (PDO) cheeses, the “happy cows” program, and the production of an organic milk, from the Terceira Island. Some of these programs are relatively recent, so, it will be interesting to see how their sales and acceptance by consumers evolve, particularly under the current economic frameworkinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Divergence via Europeanisation: rethinking the origins of the Portuguese debt crisis

A founding myth of the euro was that profound economic convergence could be achieved across the core and periphery of Europe. Scholarship from within Comparative Political Economy (CPE) has compellingly pointed to this myth of convergence as the fundamental mistake of the euro project (Regan, “Imbalance of Capitalisms”). Economic and Monetary Union was applied across a range of incompatible varieties of capitalism with little appreciation for how difficult it would be for peripheral economies to overcome long-standing institutional stickiness. Yet, while institutional stickiness tells us much about the causes of declining competitiveness, it tells us much less about the origins of brand new patterns of debt-led growth. This article modifies this CPE account by drawing attention to the much overlooked case of Portugal. In contrast to CPE’s emphasis on institutional stickiness, this paper explores the ways in which negotiation of European integration has been generative of institutional transformation leading to debt-led growth in Portugal. By combining Europeanisation with CPE, this article shows that, far from an inability to do so, in the case of Portugal, it has been the attempt to ‘follow the rules’ of European Integration that explains its damaging patterns of debt-led growth

On the potential economic costs of cutting carbon dioxide emissions in Portugal

The objective of this paper is to estimate the impact of reducing carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion activities on economic activity in Portugal. We find that energy consumption has a significant impact on macroeconomic activity. In fact, a 1 ton of oil equivalent permanent reduction in aggregate energy consumption reduces output in the long term by €6,340. More importantly, and since carbon dioxide emissions are linearly related to the amounts of fuel consumed, our results allow us to estimate the costs of reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. We estimate that a uniform standard for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion activities would lead to a marginal abatement cost of €95.74 per ton of carbon dioxide. This is a first rough estimate of the potential economic costs of policies designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. At this level one may conclude that uniform, across the board reductions in carbon emissions would have a clear negative effect on economic activity. Hence, at the aggregate level there is clear evidence for a trade-off between economic performance and a reduction in carbon emissions. This opens the door to the investigation of the scope for policy to minimize the costs of environmental policy and regulation.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Fiscal sustainability and policy implications for the euro area" by

Abstract In this paper we examine the sustainability of euro area public finances against the backdrop of population ageing. We critically assess the widely used projections of the Working Group on Ageing Populations (AWG) of the EU's Economic Policy Committee and argue that ageing costs may be higher than projected in the AWG reference scenario. Taking into account adjusted headline estimates for ageing costs, largely based upon the sensitivity analysis carried out by the AWG, we consider alternative indicators to quantify sustainability gaps for euro area countries. With respect to the policy implications, we assess the appropriateness of different budgetary strategies to restore fiscal sustainability taking into account intergenerational equity. Our stylised analysis based upon the lifetime contribution to the government's primary balance of different generations suggests that an important degree of pre-funding of the ageing costs is necessary to avoid shifting the burden of adjustment in a disproportionate way to future generations. For many euro area countries this implies that the medium-term targets defined in the context of the revised stability and growth pact would ideally need to be revised upwards to significant surpluses