Saturday March 8th marks International Women’s Day, an opportune time to reflect on the relative socio-economic position of women in our society. While there are a myriad of facts, figures and data that allow us to explore this topic I am going to focus on three ‘gender gaps’ in this blog which uses...

Health has been in the news a lot recently. Accident and Emergency under pressure. Budgets running over. Private health insurance costs ever rising. Standards of care concerns to the fore. People worried about whether they will get the treatment they need when they need it and within their means...

The latest data from the CSO shows employment up roughly 60,000 since the same period of last year, getting close to levels last seen at the end of 2009 (and first seen back in 2005). Interestingly, of the increase in employment of 61,000, over three quarters almost (47,100) of the increase was for...

Youth Unemployment is an issue that is affecting nearly every developed country across the western world. While some labour market and output indicators may show some signs of recovery, youth unemployment is a reminder that the greatest recession to hit the developed world since the great depression...

The past six years have been very challenging with a succession of harsh budgets, pay cuts, tax increases and price hikes faced by all households. For those impacted most, unemployment and emigration have hit home. For others, the challenge to make ends meet has grown harder and harder. While the...

It’s a funny old world as a former British Prime Minister once said. The United States and the United Kingdom have distinguished themselves in the last quarter century as leaders in wage in equality, a declining share of wages in total income and enhanced ‘labour market flexibility’. Larry Summers...

Today's NERI seminar in the INTO Learning Centre focussed on the impact of the patent cliff on economic and fiscal activity In Ireland. Shane Enright and Mary Dalton gave a detailed overview of their recent paper on the subject. Mary and Shane both work in the Department of Finance. Previously, Mary...

‘Economics’ has been defined as a ‘science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses’ (Lionel Robbins). While I have difficulty with an understanding which regards economics as a ‘science’ (scientific methods may be used but, surely...

Under-employment continues to be a major long-term issue for Irish workers. The broadest measure of unemployment (whereby people are either unemployed, or working part-time but wishing to work full-time, or discouraged workers) remains at 23.5%, down from a peak of 25.8% in mid-2012. In the third...