President M.D. Higgins speaking with Tom Healy 'The work of this Institute, and others like it, is critical in advancing reasoned moral arguments about how the issues of work, employment, unemployment and social security are to be approached' said President Michael D. Higgins at the inaugural Dónal...

A visitor from outer space might be forgiven for concluding that the only or main economic problem confronting European States was deficit and debts - Government deficits and debts. The corollary of this problem is - of course - austerity to cure the ailment. Or is it? Lets compare the Government...

The latest NERI seminar, from Kieran McQuinn and Robert Kelly of the Central Bank, examined the relationship between unemployment and house prices and used this relationship to examine the impact on banking defaults / mortgage defaults of economic growth. Modelling a fiscal stimulus of €2b, they...

The tax wedge measures the difference between the total labour costs to the employer (wages + employers PRSI) and the corresponding net take-home pay for an employee (gross wages - all income taxes and PRSI). It is generally reported as a percentage of total labour costs. The latest OECD figures for...

One of the lessons of the recent economic collapse (I hope!) has been the importance of a stable tax base. Total stability is impossible for a small open economy like Ireland; we will always have swings in economic performance which will alter the volume of economic transactions and tax revenues...

The gap between what the Government in Ireland takes in and what it spends is running at a rate of €1 billion every month. Clearly this is not sustainable in the long-run because it adds to the total amount of debt owed by citizens year after year. The total amount of debt owed by the Government on...

Comparing wages of public sector workers across countries poses many difficulties. Nevertheless the OECD publishes some useful information. In 2009 public sector clerical workers were paid below the OECD average. This is the latest available data (more timely data should be available in June). The...

16% of the Irish population lives on an income which is less than the official poverty line - about €210 per adult per week. Given a population of approximately 4.58 million people this implies that almost 730,000 live at risk of poverty. In the latest edition of the NERI's Quarterly Economic Facts...