Mário José Gomes de Freitas Centeno (born 9 December 1966) is a Portuguese economist, university professor, and politician. From 2015 to 2020, he was

Minister of Finance A ministry of finance is a ministry or other government agency in charge of government finance, fiscal policy, and financial regulation. It is headed by a finance minister, an executive or cabinet position . A ministry of finance's portfolio ...

of Portugal in the government cabinet of Prime Minister

António Costa António Luís Santos da Costa (; born 17 July 1961) is a Portuguese lawyer and politician who has served as President of the European Council since 2024. He previously served as the 118th prime minister of Portugal from 2015 to 2024 and th ...

of the Portuguese Socialist Party (PS). He was the president of the

Eurogroup The Eurogroup is the recognised collective term for the informal meetings of the finance ministers of the eurozone—those member states of the European Union (EU) which have adopted the euro as their official currency. The group has 20 members ...

and chairman of the board of Governors of the

European Stability Mechanism The European Stability Mechanism (ESM) is an intergovernmental organization located in Luxembourg City, which operates under public international law for all eurozone member states having ratified a special ESM intergovernmental treaty. It was ...

from 2018 to 2020. Previously, he was a

board member A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulations ...

economist of the

Bank of Portugal The Banco de Portugal (, ) is the national central bank for Portugal within the Eurosystem. It was the Portuguese central bank from 1846 to 1998, issuing the escudo. Since 2014, it has also been Portugal's national competent authority within E ...

. On 9 June 2020, he announced his resignation from the Ministry of Finance, effective 15 June. On 16 July 2020, the

Council of Ministers Council of Ministers is a traditional name given to the supreme Executive (government), executive organ in some governments. It is usually equivalent to the term Cabinet (government), cabinet. The term Council of State is a similar name that also m ...

approved Centeno's nomination for the post of Governor of the

, put forward by his successor as Finance minister, João Leão. Centeno is the author or co-author of several scientific publications, books and book chapters related to his areas of interest, such as

labour economics Labour economics seeks to understand the functioning and dynamics of the Market (economics), markets for wage labour. Labour (human activity), Labour is a commodity that is supplied by labourers, usually in exchange for a wage paid by demanding ...

econometrics Econometrics is an application of statistical methods to economic data in order to give empirical content to economic relationships. M. Hashem Pesaran (1987). "Econometrics", '' The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics'', v. 2, p. 8 p. 8 ...

microeconomics Microeconomics is a branch of economics that studies the behavior of individuals and Theory of the firm, firms in making decisions regarding the allocation of scarcity, scarce resources and the interactions among these individuals and firms. M ...

and

contract theory From a legal point of view, a contract is an institutional arrangement for the way in which resources flow, which defines the various relationships between the parties to a transaction or limits the rights and obligations of the parties. From an ...

Early life and education

Mário Centeno, a native from

Algarve The Algarve (, , ) is the southernmost NUTS statistical regions of Portugal, NUTS II region of continental Portugal. It has an area of with 467,495 permanent inhabitants and incorporates 16 municipalities (concelho, ''concelhos'' or ''município ...

region in southern mainland Portugal, was born in

Olhão Olhão (), officially known as Olhão da Restauração, is a city and concelho, municipality in the Algarve region of southern Portugal. The population of the municipality in 2011 was 45,396, in an area of . Located near the regional capital Faro, ...

but was raised until his 15th anniversary in Vila Real de Santo António, also in Algarve, when he moved to Lisbon in order to study with the aim of entering university there. His grandfather, Joaquim Gomes, worked as a miner in São Domingos Mine before becoming a successful restaurant owner, starting in 1936, in Vila Real de Santo António. Centeno's mother was a CTT post office chief and his father was a bank branch manager. He studied economics at

University of Lisbon The University of Lisbon (ULisboa; ) is a public university, public research university in Lisbon, and Portugal's largest university. It was founded in 1911, but the university's present structure dates to the 2013 merger of the former Universit ...

, faculty of Economics and Business Management (ISEG-ULISBOA), graduating in 1990. He earned a master's degree in

applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematics, mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and Industrial sector, industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a ...

from ISEG-ULISBOA in 1993, a master's degree in economics from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

that he completed in 1998, and he was awarded a PhD in economics by Harvard University in 2000. Lawrence Katz was his adviser.

Early career

An expert on labour market issues, Centeno joined the

Banco de Portugal The Banco de Portugal (, ) is the National central bank (Eurosystem), national central bank for Portugal within the Eurosystem. It was the Portuguese central bank from 1846 to 1998, issuing the Portuguese escudo, escudo. Since 2014, it has also ...

(Central Bank of Portugal) in 2000, where he worked as an economist until 2004. He was member of the Executive Committee of European Association of Labor Economists (EALE) from 2003 to 2005. From 2004 to 2013 he was assistant director of the Central Bank Economics’ Department. He was member of the Economic Policy Committee of the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...

between 2004 and 2013. He also directed the Macroeconomics Statistics Development's work group in the Superior Statistics Council (CSE) between 2007 and 2013.Board of Governors: Mário Centeno

. From 2014, Centeno was Professor at ISEG,

, and worked as a consultant to the Central Bank of Portugal. In addition, he served as the main economic policy advisor to Socialist leader

, coordinating the Socialist economic programme before the 2015 legislative elections.

Political career

Minister of Finance

After taking office as Finance Minister in 2015, Centeno enacted policies which reversed some austerity policies from the Portuguese government-debt crisis (2010–2014). The new post-crisis situation allowed him to authorize a public pensions' rise and improved wage payment to civil servants as a way to "increase households’ disposable income", while insisting that European Union's budget rules must be respected. Early in his tenure, he urged the EU to acknowledge the scale of Portugal's economic turnround as the country headed towards its lowest fiscal deficit in more than 40 years and to remove Portugal from the group of countries subject to penalties for breaking the

European Fiscal Compact The Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union; also referred to as TSCG, or more plainly the Fiscal Stability Treaty is an intergovernmental treaty introduced as a new stricter version of the Stability ...

. By the end of 2017, national opinion polls placed Centeno as the best-known and best-liked minister. In November 2017, Centeno submitted his formal application for succeeding

Jeroen Dijsselbloem Jeroen René Victor Anton Dijsselbloem (; born 29 March 1966) is a Dutch politician and economist serving as Mayor of Eindhoven since 13 September 2022, succeeding John Jorritsma ( VVD). A member of the Labour Party (PvdA), he has also been Cha ...

as the next chairman of the

. On 4 December 2017, he was elected President of the

, incumbent from 13 January 2018. Reportedly favored by an informal agreement between French President

Emmanuel Macron Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron (; born 21 December 1977) is a French politician who has served as President of France and Co-Prince of Andorra since 2017. He was Ministry of Economy and Finance (France), Minister of Economics, Industr ...

and German Chancellor

Angela Merkel Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German retired politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. She is the only woman to have held the office. She was Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2005 and Leade ...

, he defeated Pierre Gramegna of

Luxembourg Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France on the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembour ...

, Peter Kažimír of

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

and

Dana Reizniece-Ozola Dana Reizniece (born November 6, 1981) is a Latvian politician and chess player. She has been managing director of the International Chess Federation (FIDE) since 2021. She also served as minister of Economics (2014–2016) and minister of Fina ...

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

. His election carried particular symbolic weight because he is from one of the countries hardest hit by the debt crisis. He would serve a -year term, which is renewable. On 21 December 2017, he was appointed as chairman of the board of Governors of the

, effective from 13 January 2018. Following the resignation of

Christine Lagarde Christine Madeleine Odette Lagarde (; , ; born 1 January 1956) is a French politician and lawyer who has been the President of the European Central Bank since 2019. She previously served as the 11th Managing Director of the International Monetar ...

as managing director of the

International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution funded by 191 member countries, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. It is regarded as the global lender of las ...

(IMF) in 2019, Centeno was one of the candidates considered by European governments as potential successor; he withdrew his candidacy shortly after and the post went to

Kristalina Georgieva Kristalina Ivanova Georgieva-Kinova (; ; born 13 August 1953) is a Bulgarian economist who has served as the 12th managing director of the International Monetary Fund since 2019. She is the first person from an emerging market economy to lead ...

instead. Completely unknown to the public at the time he entered government as minister, Centeno had a reputation for

economic liberalism Economic liberalism is a political and economic ideology that supports a market economy based on individualism and private property in the means of production. Adam Smith is considered one of the primary initial writers on economic liberalism ...

in international academic circles because of his positions and research work in favour of greater labor market flexibility. However, during is tenure as Portuguese minister of finance (2015-2020), decades-long rigidity and inefficiency issues of the Portuguese labor market remained an unresolved problem hampering the Portuguese economy while the deepening of economic liberal policies in accordance with his positions and academic theories weren't put in place in a country persistently criticized by institutions and organizations like the

OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; , OCDE) is an international organization, intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and international trade, wor ...

, the

IMF The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution funded by 191 member countries, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. It is regarded as the global lender of la ...

and the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

for its anti-market, labor movement-inspired labor laws and rules which promote overstaffing and the misallocation of factors of production in general. In early 2020, the Parliament of Portugal followed Centeno's proposal and approved the country's first budget with a surplus in almost half a century in spite of the number of civil servants has increased for a sixth straight year. But an increasing deterioration of public services including in health, education and transportation infrastructure due to a lack of funding and

government spending Government spending or expenditure includes all government consumption, investment, and transfer payments. In national income accounting, the acquisition by governments of goods and services for current use, to directly satisfy the individual or ...

was perceptible while the country continued to fall behind in

purchasing power Purchasing power refers to the amount of products and services available for purchase with a certain currency unit. For example, if you took one unit of cash to a store in the 1950s, you could buy more products than you could now, showing that th ...

and

productivity Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production proce ...

in the context of the European Union, a feature that was associated with the persistent misallocation of capital, labor and skills. During Centeno's tenure as minister a record high

tax burden In economics, tax incidence or tax burden is the effect of a particular tax on the distribution of economic welfare. Economists distinguish between the entities who ultimately bear the tax burden and those on whom the tax is initially imposed. The ...

was reached in Portugal. By 2021, Portugal's

GDP (PPP) GDP (PPP) means gross domestic product based on purchasing power parity. This article includes a list of countries by their forecast estimated GDP (PPP). Countries are sorted by GDP (PPP) forecast estimates from financial and statistical ...

was $36,381 per capita, according to OECD's report. It was the 4th lowest GDP per capita (PPP) of the eurozone out of 19 members, and the 8th lowest of the European Union out of 27 member-states, with several former economically disadvantaged

Communist Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc (Combloc), the Socialist Bloc, the Workers Bloc, and the Soviet Bloc, was an unofficial coalition of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America that were a ...

countries which in the meanwhile had become Eastern European member-states of the EU, nearly reaching or surpassing Portugal in terms of GDP (PPP) per capita around this date. In 2021,

labour productivity Workforce productivity is the amount of goods and services that a group of workers produce in a given amount of time. It is one of several types of productivity that economists measure. Workforce productivity, often referred to as labor produc ...

was the fifth lowest among the 27 member-states of the European Union (EU) and was 35% lower than the EU average. By 2022, the Portuguese productivity of labour (PPP) had fallen to the fourth lowest position among the 27 member-states of the European Union with only Bulgaria and Greece being clearly inferior to Portugal in that parameter.

Controversy

In early 2018, Centeno was being investigated for allegedly accepting S.L. Benfica tickets in exchange for a favourable tax treatment for a real-estate company owned by the son of Benfica president

Luís Filipe Vieira Luís Filipe Ferreira Vieira (born 22 June 1949) is a Portuguese real estate businessman who was the List of S.L. Benfica presidents, 33rd president of sports club S.L. Benfica, from October 2003 to July 2021. He was also president of the club ...

.Paul Ames,
Police search offices of Eurogroup President Mário Centeno
, ''

Politico Europe ''Politico Europe'' (stylized as ''POLITICO Europe'') is the European edition of the American news organization '' Politico'' reporting on political affairs of the European Union. Its headquarters are located in Brussels with additional offices in ...

'', 27 January 2018. Updated 28 January 2018. Retrieved 28 January 2018.Niels Posthumus,
Politie doet inval bij Portugese ministerie van Financiën
(in Dutch), ''

NRC Handelsblad ''NRC'', previously called ' (), is a daily morning newspaper published in the Netherlands by Mediahuis NRC. It is widely regarded as a newspaper of record in the country. History was first published on 1 October 1970 after a merger of the Amst ...

'', 28 January 2018. Retrieved 28 January 2018. On 26 January 2018, Centeno's office was searched by the Portuguese police. On 1 February, prosecutors dropped the investigation, concluding there was "no crime of favoritism or any other (crime)" and that it has archived the case.

Later career

In June 2020, the Portuguese government nominated Centeno as the next governor of the

, succeeding Carlos da Silva Costa.

Other activities

;European Union organizations *

European Investment Bank The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the European Union's investment bank and is owned by the 27 member states. It is the largest multilateral financial institution in the world. The EIB finances and invests both through equity and debt sol ...

(EIB), Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Governors (2015–2020) *

(ESM), Member of the Board of Governors (2015–2020) ;International organizations *

African Development Bank The African Development Bank Group (AfDB, also known as BAD in French) is a multilateral development finance institution, headquartered in Abidjan, Ivory Coast since September 2014. The AfDB is a financial provider to African governments and ...

(AfDB), Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Governors (2015–2020) *

Asian Development Bank The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is a regional development bank to promote social and economic development in Asia. The bank is headquartered in Metro Manila, Philippines and maintains 31 field offices around the world. The bank was establishe ...

(ADB), Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Governors (2015–2020) *

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, shortened to EBRD ( French: ''Banque européenne pour la reconstruction et le développement'' or ''BERD''), is an international financial institution founded in 1991 in Paris. As a multilat ...

(EBRD), Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Governors (2015–2020) * Inter-American Investment Corporation (IIC), Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Governors (2015–2020) *

Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) is an international financial institution which offers political risk insurance and credit enhancement guarantees. These guarantees help investors protect foreign direct investments against ...

(MIGA),

World Bank Group The World Bank Group (WBG) is a family of five international organizations that make leveraged loans to developing countries. It is the largest and best-known development bank in the world and an observer at the United Nations Development Group ...

, Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Governors (2015–2020) *

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...

, Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Governors (2015–2020) ;Non-profit organizations * Osservatorio Permanente Giovani-Editori, Member of the International Advisory Board * Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Fellow (since 2009)Mário Centeno
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA). * '' Portuguese Economic Journal'', Member of the Editorial Board (since 2001)

Recognition

* 2001 – Young Economist Award of the European Economic Association (EEA) * 2006 – Latin Union Award for Scientific Merit

Personal life

Centeno was married to Maria Margarida Morgado, one of his university classmates from ISEG, and had three children with her. She died in 2022. As a student, Centeno played rugby for the rugby team of the economics school. He is a keen soccer enthusiast and supports Lisbon club Benfica. He wore a

Portugal national football team The Portugal national football team () has represented Portugal in men's international Association football, football competitions since 1921. The national team is controlled by the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF), the governing body for ...

scarf to the first Eurogroup meeting after his country's team won the European championship in 2016.Axel Bugge (4 December 2017)
Centeno brings Portuguese charm to Eurogroup top job
''

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency ...

''.

References

External links

* , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Centeno, Mario 1966 births Finance ministers of Portugal Government ministers of Portugal Governors of the Bank of Portugal Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Living people Members of the Assembly of the Republic (Portugal) People from Olhão 20th-century Portuguese economists Technical University of Lisbon alumni Independent politicians in Portugal 21st-century Portuguese economists