Budget Power: How Budgetary Decisions Affect Current Portuguese Performance?

When a country like Portugal faces enormous economic and social difficulties resembling the ones that it faces now, it is necessary to question: “What is going on in there?”. Is this the product of the so vaunted financial crisis? or, on the contrary, is the result of governmental decisions over time? One aspect that can give us insights on the causes of the problems that the country faces is the yearly budget. We mean, looking at the way governments, sometimes with oppositions’ approval, established national budgets over time (from 1982 to 2009) will make us confirm or not if there is correspondence between their plans and their final outcomes. At this level, it is also relevant to look at institutional veto-players and structure. Furthermore, the analytical skeleton will give us hints on how do governments deals with budgetary questions vis-à-vis to issue legislative initiatives. With this data we will have clues related to the roots of the problem and so, we will test our idea empirically using Portuguese national budgets information, how they can vary along time, issues concerning and outcomes.