Research Group
Research Group
Research Group
DINÂMIA'CET-IUL
Centre for Socioeconomic and Territorial Studies
Integrated Researcher
Ana Costa
research interests
Political economy of austerity; Theoretical and epistemological foundations of crises and of the public policies to deal with them; International economic organizations; Values and valuation.
Short Bio
Ana Costa is a professor at ISCTE – Lisbon University Institute (Political Economy Department of the School of Social Sciences) and researcher at DINAMIA’CET (Research Centre for Socioeconomic Change and the Territory). She graduated in Economics and concluded a Master in Development and International Cooperation at ISEG and a PhD in Economics at ISCTE. She was subdirector of DINÂMIA’CET. Member of the Observatory about Crisis and Alternatives (Centre for Social Studies - University of Coimbra), in collaboration with the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
research project at dinâmia'cet-Iscte
The relationship between ideas, discourses and policies and how this coalition comprises various spaces for the production and circulation of economic knowledge. Recognizing, simultaneously, that this relationship does not exist in a vacuum, but in interaction with a set of economic, social and political forces and with economic processes and results: (a) analysis of the narratives mobilized by economists and other actors as, for instance, journalists about the functioning of the economy, that constitute the underlying epistemic and value-laden presuppositions to public policies; (b) analysis of the dominance of certain economic ideas and the underlying mechanisms justifying such dominance. The case of the Bank of Portugal situated at the interplay between the production of economic knowledge and economic policy advice; (c) study of the impact of the internal devaluation measures and of liberalization and financialization trajectories.
Main publications
Campos Lima, Maria da Paz, Martins, Diogo, Costa, Ana and António Velez (2021), “Internal devaluation and economic inequality in Portugal: challenges to industrial relations in times of crisis and recovery”, Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, 27:1, pp. 47-73, doi: 10.1177/1024258921995006.
Costa, Ana (2019), “O Banco de Portugal e a disseminação de ideias económicas”, em Vítor Neves e José Reis (eds.), A Ciência Económica em Portugal. Discursos, Protagonistas e Instituições Recentes, Coimbra: Almedina: 95 - 134.
Costa, Ana, José Castro Caldas, Ricardo Coelho, Maria de Fátima Ferreiro e Vasco Gonçalves (2016), “The building of a dam: value conflicts in public decision-making”, Environmental Values, vol. 25: 215-234
Ferreiro, Maria de Fátima, Maria Eduarda Gonçalves e Ana Costa (2013), “Conflicting Values and Public Decision: the Foz Côa Case”, Ecological Economics, vol. 86: 129-135.
Costa, Ana Narciso e José Castro Caldas (2011), “Claiming Choice for Institutional Economics”, Journal of Economic Issues, Vol. XLV, nº. 3: 665-684.
Main projects
Member of the SOLID-JOB research team (Rebuilding solidarity in an age of job dualisation - PTDC/CPO-CPO/6230/2020) (March 2021 to February 2024)
Member of the REVAL research team (From internal devaluation to revaluation of work: the case of Portugal - PTDC/SOC-SOC/28811/2017) (September 2018 to March 2022)
Member of the research team RECON (The making of economics in Portugal: a study of Portuguese recent economic research (1980 to the present)) coordinated by the CES - Center for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra, with the DINÂMIA'CET as participant institution (PTDC / IVCHFC / 3826/2014 June 2016 to June 2019)
Principal Investigator of the OpenEc research project (Economics and the “real-world”: the case of the Portuguese Memorandum) coordinated by the CES - Center for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra, with DINÂMIA'CET as participant institution (EXPL / IVC-ESCT / 2324/2013, April 2014 to September 2015).
Member of the research team BeCom (Choice beyond (in)commensurability: controversies and public decision making on territorial sustainable development) coordinated by the CES - Center for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra, where the DINAMIA'CET-IUL participant institution (PTDC / CS-ECS / 099630/2008, February 2010 to September 2013).
Last update