A justiça e a crise - opinião contracorrente

The Portuguese Economy: The Portuguese legal system and economic growth

The Portuguese court system is not worse than the Spanish, the Italian, the Greek or the French court systems (probably better according to the numbers produced by the World Bank Governance Indicators and the World Bank’s Doing Business). It is certainly better than most Central and East Europe, Latin America, Africa and China. Blaming the legal system for lack of FDI and economic growth is simply misplaced and a myth that covers other structural determinants. In fact, the inefficiencies of the Portuguese legal system are more likely to impose significant costs to small domestic investors and firms than to foreign investors and multinationals (they use international commercial arbitration anyway).