IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ehsrev/v67y2014i2p535-555.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A ‘blank cheque'? Portuguese Second World War sterling balances, 1940–73

Author

Listed:
  • Marcelo Paiva Abreu

Abstract

type="main"> The British effort in the Second World War required massive external financing which depended on Lend-Lease and the accumulation of sterling balances. Indebtedness in sterling balances corresponded to almost 38 per cent of this total at the end of the war. Portuguese sterling balances, although a small share of the total, were important because of pre-emptive purchases, especially of wolfram, and because of the ‘gold clause’ which was to be applied to outstanding balances. Portugal's willingness to finance British purchases contrasts with the requirement of German payments in goods or cash for their purchases in Portugal. The settlement of Portuguese sterling balances in August 1945 was singular as it preceded the Anglo-American settlement of December 1945 which had important consequences for sterling balance holders, as the US insisted that the US$3.75 billion loan should not be used to settle British war debts. Postwar settlement of British debt through a long-term loan from Portugal to Britain contrasts with settlements that involved the sale of British assets. Salazar's concerns about the postwar international position of Portugal, the Portuguese Empire, and the survival of the Portuguese regime are relevant in explaining his pro-British stance during and after the war.

Suggested Citation

  • Marcelo Paiva Abreu, 2014. "A ‘blank cheque'? Portuguese Second World War sterling balances, 1940–73," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 67(2), pages 535-555, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:67:y:2014:i:2:p:535-555
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/1468-0289.12020
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marcelo De Paiva Abreu, 1990. "Brazil as a creditor: sterling balances, 1940-1952," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 43(3), pages 450-469, August.
    2. Leonard Caruana & Hugh Rockoff, 2001. "A Wolfram in Sheep's Clothing: U.S. Economic Warfare in Spain, 1940-1944," NBER Historical Working Papers 0132, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Giorgio Fodor, 1999. "The nationalisation of the British Railways in Uruguay," Department of Economics Working Papers 9904, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    4. repec:cup:cbooks:9781107612990 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. repec:cup:cbooks:9780521876971 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Caruana, Leonard & Rockoff, Hugh, 2003. "A Wolfram in Sheep's Clothing: Economic Warfare in Spain, 1940–1944," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 63(1), pages 100-126, March.
    7. repec:cup:cbooks:9780521391399 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Luciano Amaral, 2018. "A monetary plethora and what to do with it: the Bank of Portugal during the Second World War and the postwar period (1931–60)," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 71(3), pages 795-822, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rosado Cubero, Ana, 2014. "Gilda: El coste de lanzar un guante a un oligopolista/Gilda: The Cost to Challenge a Cartel Member," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 32, pages 247-258, Enero.
    2. Marcelo de Paiva Abreu, 2011. "A “blank cheque”? Portuguese World War II sterling balances, 1940-1973," Textos para discussão 596, Department of Economics PUC-Rio (Brazil).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:67:y:2014:i:2:p:535-555. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ehsukea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.