The impact of the financial crisis and financial assistance in Portuguese competitiveness: micro and macro foundations

This study analyses factors that influence the competitiveness of countries and the Portuguese competitiveness in comparison with European Union countries, in particular with Greece and Ireland. We also present a formal model of Porter Diamond model and its generalisation. The data come from Global Competitiveness Index from 2006 to 2013 for 144 countries. The methodology is based on factorial analyses, regression analyses and cluster analyses. The methodology used is innovative and the regression analysis allows us to estimate competitiveness levels. The results shows that political institutions, social infrastructure and microeconomic competitiveness have an impact on competitiveness and monetary and fiscal policies are irrelevant for the competitiveness of the countries. Portugal lies in the group of middle-high competitiveness countries and Portuguese competitiveness is average in the European Union, however it is inferior to Ireland and superior to Greece. The main limitation of this research article is that the dataset is limited to the Global Competitiveness Index.