Productive structure, key sectors and economic complexity in Portugal: a long run analysis

The main purpose of this paper is to analyse the evolution of the Portuguese productive structure between the end of the 1950s and 2020, based on the relationship between the productive sectors, i.e. the so-called intersectoral (or input-output) flows. Firstly, the history of the construction of Input-Output tables in Portugal is presented. Secondly, to analyse the evolution of the density of the industrial network over time based on quantitative indicators of the most relevant flows, all the tables are harmonized and made compatible (same number of sectors, as homogeneous as possible). Thirdly, the key sectors of the Portuguese economy are identified, using several indicators and fourthly,
the evolution of “economic complexity” in Portugal between 1959 and 2020 is studied using two distinct input-output based quantitative measures.