Understanding the Euro Crisis: Causes and Fixes

15 Jan 2016
infobo
The euro crisis was and remains a system problem. The roots of the crisis lie in a series of structural flaws in the architecture of European Monetary Union including in its design, construction and implementation. Notable design flaws include the absence of a centrally run banking union to...

Monday Blog: Thinking aloud about Brexit

15 Jan 2016
Tom Healy
2016 will be dominated, among other things, by the British question. The word ‘Brexit’ has been added to the English language. As everyone knows by now it would mean the UK (and that includes Northern Ireland) leaving the European Union following a referendum later this year. Historically, the...

Just Change – reforming Scotland’s Local Property Tax

12 Jan 2016
Micheál Collins
Scotland’s Commission on Local Tax Reform was established in early 2015 with the purpose of considering reforms to the current Council Tax system – one deemed outdated and broken by those on all sides. On December 14 th last the Commission published its final report entitled ‘ Just Change: A New...

Monday Blog: Public Sector reform

08 Jan 2016
Tom Healy
Public sector reform is an expression that falls lightly into the lap of public discourse. Everyone speaks up for ‘public sector reform’ and few if any would disagree that the sector needs constant reforming and improvement. That said, I can’t remember the last time I heard the expression ‘private...

Low tax, low spend?

06 Jan 2016
Dr Tom McDonnell
The NERI’s Quarterly Economic Facts contains a range of indicators on the public finances. One of these indicators compares levels of government revenue and public spending in the Republic of Ireland (Ireland) with that of other EU economies. The basic method of comparison is to measure total...

Minimum Wage Increase - who gains?

05 Jan 2016
Micheál Collins
January 1st saw a 50 cent increase in the hourly Minimum Wage; the first since 2011. The increase to €9.15 per hour follows the recommendations of the Low Pay Commission. A recent NERI Research inBrief estimates some of the effects of this increase. Specifically, it examines the average impact on...

Monday Blog: Looking to an enterprising new year at the NERI

01 Jan 2016
Tom Healy
Happy new year! The issues of happiness, sustainability and well-being will continue to exercise our attention in 2016. Regrettably Gross Domestic Product measures only some things while neglecting others. Worse still, some components of GDP may be inflated by negative human behaviour while adding...

Monday Blog: A tale of two economies (or three?)

01 Jan 2016
Tom Healy
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...

A quick review of employment and wages in 2015

22 Dec 2015
Daragh McCarthy
There seems to be an increasingly strong contention that 2015 was officially the year the good times returned. A quick overview of employment and average wage growth would suggests a definite improvement in the labour market over the past 12 months, and the outlook for 2016 is broadly positive, but...
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