Capital services estimates in Portuguese industries, 1977-2003

This paper presents capital services estimates for 26 Portuguese industries for the 1977-2003 period. The estimation procedure follows an integrated approach under which the flows of capital services are approximated as a proportion of the capital stock converted into standard efficiency units. Our findings suggest a close proximity between the evolution of capital flows and the observed fluctuations of Portuguese macroeconomic growth. TFP growth estimates based on growth accounting reveal, furthermore, a very disappointing performance of the Portuguese economy during the period under study, with an average annual rate of TFP growth of 0.8% being observed. Performance varies across industries, but the bulk of activities show very modest rates of TFP growth.