Paradoxically, since the 1990’s consideration of all-island or all-Ireland economic issues has fallen by the way. True, the peace process and associated mechanisms have continued to highlight the importance of cross-border trade and cooperation. These matters attract almost universal support and interest across various political spectrums, North and South. In other words, interest in all-island cooperation on economic matters is not necessarily at all an agenda for a united political Ireland or any other arrangement. But, one will search in vain to identify a raft of academic papers, joint events and projects in the sphere of economic research centered on cross-border issues.
There are some honourable exceptions including the work of the Centre For Cross-Border Studies 
or the work of individual researchers (including for example research by John Bradley and Michael Best here ). Over the decades there have been examples of collaborative work by institutions of higher education, InterTrade Ireland, economic consultancies as well as bodies such as the Economic and Social Research Institute and similar bodies in Northern Ireland such as the now defunct Economic Research Institute of Northern Ireland (ERINI). However, there is a noticeable absence of generalised interest in, and use of, cross-border economic analysis in recent times.
Research on the economy of Northern Ireland has been hampered by a lack of key data series on essential components of the regional economy. However, a new publication by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI) entitled ‘Structure of the NI Economy, Experimental Results’ contains, for the first time in recent years, a more or less full set of regional macroeconomic accounts.
The Report, which has a sub-title ‘Experimental Results’, shows that estimated GDP in Northern Ireland, in 2012, was £37.2 billion. This was considerably higher than Gross Value Added – the measure of total output in Northern Ireland used by the NERI in our Quarterly Economic Observers.
Total wages or compensation of employees came to £18.5 billion or 57% of Gross Value Added at £32.4 billion. In all, Northern Ireland exported £18.3 billion in goods and services of which a half was to Great Britain and 20% to the Republic of Ireland. The Republic of Ireland is worth £3.5 billion (or €4.3 billion at 2012 exchange rates) to Northern Ireland. In the other direction, Northern Ireland imported £24.9 billion in 2012 of which nearly three quarters comes from Great Britain while 10% comes from the Republic. Overall, Northern Ireland had a trade deficit with the rest of the world (including Great Britain) of €6.5 billion or 17.5% of estimated GDP in Northern Ireland in 2012.
While the data are ‘experimental’ as well as dated to 2012 and comparisons across UK regions or across the border with the Republic of Ireland must be made with considerable caution it is clear that:
- Levels of output and income in Northern Ireland are considerably lower than they are in the rest of the UK as well as in the Republic of Ireland.
- The make up or structure of income is different in Northern Ireland compared to the Republic. Wages or compensation of employees account for a higher proportion of total value-added than in the Republic (clearly the size and profitability of the multinational sector in the Republic is a significant explanatory factor for this difference).
- Capital investment appears to be significantly lower in Northern Ireland in 2012 than was the case in the rest of the UK. Correspondingly, household consumption as a percentage of final demand or GDP is higher than elsewhere.
- The Republic of Ireland is a much more ‘open economy’ in terms of exports and imports than Northern Ireland. Not surprisingly, the economy of the latter is heavily integrated into the UK markets. Whereas total exports of goods and services exceeded the entire size of GDP in the Republic, the corresponding figure was 49% in Northern Ireland.
- Compensation of employees in Northern Ireland (including employer national insurance contributions) came to 57% of total Gross Value Added. By contrast, the corresponding number for the Republic was 49% - once again reflecting the enormous weight of multinational corporate income among other factors.
A cursory examination of these data indicates two very different economies on the island of Ireland. One is heavily dependent on multinational firms and associated exporting activity especially in pharmaceutical products and ICT services. The other is heavily dependent on UK markets as well as UK fiscal transfers (although the size of the latter depends on the estimation methods used). Put another way, the economy of the Republic of Ireland has moved from dependence on the UK in the period up to the 1960s to dependence on foreign multinational investment (and for a period on EU transfers although these are much less significant nowadays). The story, however, does not end there. The Republic of Ireland remains a very unusual economy to the extent that there is a large, high-productivity (partly inflated) and export orientated economy sitting alongside a relatively employment-intensive, relatively smaller enterprise and domestically orientated sector. On this basis it may be claimed that there are at least three economies on the island of Ireland and some voices would wish to add a fourth through a low corporate tax strategy in Northern Ireland aimed at emulating the past success of the Republic.