Francisco Louçã

Francisco Anacleto Louçã (Portuguese pronunciation: [fɾɐ̃ˈsiʃku loˈsɐ̃]; born 12 November 1956 in Lisbon) is a Portuguese economist and politician.[1]

His Excellency Francisco Louçã
Member of the Council of State
Incumbent
Assumed office 12 January 2016
Appointed by	Assembly of the Republic
President	Aníbal Cavaco Silva Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa
Coordinator of the Left Bloc
In office 24 March 1999 – 10 November 2011
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Catarina Martins João Semedo
Personal details
Born	Francisco Anacleto Louçã 12 November 1956 Lisbon, Portugal
Political party	Left Bloc (since 1999)
Other political affiliations	Revolutionary Socialist Party (1978-1999) Internationalist Communist League (1973-1978)
Alma mater	Technical University of Lisbon
Profession	Economist, professor

Biography

He is the second son of António Seixas Louçã, a Portuguese Navy Officer, and his wife Noémia da Rocha Neves Anacleto, lawyer, granddaughter of António Neves Anacleto, from Silves, brother of Isabel Maria, António, João Carlos and Jorge Manuel, and cousin of Vítor Gaspar, former Minister of Finances at the right winged Pedro Passos Coelho's government.[2][3][4]

Louçã was an active opponent of the pre-democracy regime. He was arrested for a protest against the colonial war in 1972, before the fall of the fascist dictatorship, which lasted in Portugal for about forty years and finished with the Carnation Revolution, (25 April 1974). In 1999, after pursuing his academic career, he helped found the left-wing party Left Bloc (Portuguese: Bloco de Esquerda).

Career

He is a Full Professor of Economics in Lisbon's Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão ("Higher Institute of Economics and Management"), which belongs to the University of Lisbon (formerly Technical University of Lisbon) and was a member of the Portuguese Parliament from 1999 to 2012.

He is the author of several books and scientific articles on the history of economic thought, the dynamics of complex adaptive systems and the nature of long-term techno-economic change, including "Turbulence in Economics" (Elgar, 1997), "As Time Goes By" (with Christopher Freeman, Oxford University Press, 2011 and 2002, translated into Portuguese, Chinese), "The Years of High Econometrics" (Routledge, 2007) and a number of papers in scientific journals in economics, mathematical physics, history of economic ideas, mathematical modeling of financial markets, history of biology. His scientific books are translated into eleven languages. In 1999 he was awarded the prize for the best scientific paper of the year, "History of Economics Association" (ref. Google Books).[5][6][7][8][9]

Candidate to the Portuguese 2006 presidential elections, Louçã received 288,224 votes (5.31%).

Francisco Louçã is one of the five personalities elected by the Assembly of the Republic to the Council of State on 18 December 2015, and he took office on 12 January 2016. He is also the first member of Left Bloc to accede to this organ.

2006 Portuguese presidential election

  Summary of the 22 January 2006 Portuguese presidential election results

Candidates		Supporting parties	First round
			Votes	%
	Aníbal Cavaco Silva	Social Democratic Party, People's Party	2,773,431	50.54
	Manuel Alegre	Independent	1,138,297	20.74
	Mário Soares	Socialist Party	785,355	14.31
	Jerónimo de Sousa	Portuguese Communist Party, Ecologist Party "The Greens"	474,083	8.64
	Francisco Louçã	Left Bloc	292,198	5.32
	António Garcia Pereira	Portuguese Workers' Communist Party	23,983	0.44
Total valid			5,487,347	100.00
Blank ballots			59,636	1.07
Invalid ballots			43,149	0.77
Total			5,590,132
Registered voters/turnout			9,085,339	61.53
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições

Vote share 1st Round Aníbal Cavaco Silva   50.54% Manuel Alegre   20.74% Mário Soares   14.31% Jerónimo de Sousa   8.64% Francisco Louçã   5.32% António Garcia Pereira   0.44% Blank/Invalid   1.84%

References

1. Interview by Mark Bergfeld at MRZINE, 13 May 2005
2. Raphael Minder, "Rising Left Bloc in Portugal Could Threaten Austerity Drive", The New York Times, 8 November 2015.
3. Raphael Minder, "Portugal’s Government Ousted in Challenge to Austerity", The New York Times, 10 November 2015.
4. "Portuguese MPs force minority government to quit over austerity"
5. Francisco Louçã, Texts at Ideas
6. Francisco Louçã, Articles
7. As Time Goes By: From the Industrial Revolutions to the Information Revolution – paper by Chris Freeman and Francisco Louçã at Oxford Scholarship
8. Francisco Louçã, Publications
9. Francisco Louçã, The Years of High Econometrics (A short history of the generation that reinvented economics) – paper, Routledge