Portugal’s two main export industries, footwear and textiles, were clobbered by Asian and Eastern European competition in the 1990s. As a consequence, its trade deficits widened and its competitiveness fell while the services sector, much of which is nontradable, took up the slack. Young people increasingly went into education, temporarily lowering, at the public expense, the unemployment rate, without necessarily increasing skills. As The Economist magazine wryly noted, “The number of lawyers increased by forty-eight percent between 2000 and 2010.” Meanwhile, growth per person averaged 0.2 percent per year over the same period, while combined public and private debts reached over 240 percent of GDP by 2010.

Mark Blyth, Austerity, loc. 193