Productivity and Innovation are the only things that can drive Long-run Growth
The world is changing and Ireland’s industrial and enterprise strategies will have to evolve if we wish to thrive in this new reality. One constructive step that the Irish government can take is to renew its focus on innovation policy with a view to building a world class National System of...
Monday Blog: Costs and benefits – in hindsight
Posted on January 22, 2017 by Tom Healy A saying from Lady Windermere’s Fan by Oscar Wilde has sometimes been applied to economists. It runs as follows: ‘A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.’ Now, the context for the quotation is a question posed by a Cecil Graham: ‘What...
Monday Blog: Housing: no surprises
It is now generally accepted that the Republic of Ireland has a ‘housing crisis’. Though the causes are many and interlinked it would be astonishing to deny the obvious: not enough houses have been built in recent times at the right price in the right places for the right people. Result: escalating...
Improving wellbeing: But what is it and who’s responsible? Northern Ireland’s new approach to governance
In Northern Ireland’s new draft Programme for Government (2016-2021) ‘wellbeing’ is embedded as the central concept on which the Executive seeks to base its new approach to governance. On the first line of the introduction to the draft document it is said that the ‘ Programme for Government is...
Measuring what matters: Alternative measures of progress for Northern Ireland
What is the yardstick by which the progress of countries and societies ought to be measured and judged? This is the question which, for some years now, has acted as the lynchpin behind the many conversations taking place across the globe concerned with whether or not we are measuring what really...
Monday Blog: A new world is emerging
What a year it has been so far. The phrase used by the exiting Margaret Thatcher in 1990, ‘It’s a funny old world’, springs to mind in considering the fall-out from a referendum in the UK and a presidential election in the USA. However, the matter is far from funny. The immediate causes and impacts...
External shocks - change the detail but no need to rewrite the productivity playbook
The vulnerability of the Republic of Ireland economy to external shifts and shocks was brought home in 2016 in at least two ways. While the potential Brexit from the European Union (EU) has unclear political implications, it has almost certainly negative economic implications. At the same time, the...
Monday Blog: Budget 2017 - the good, the bad and the ugly
The draft budget for 2017 for the Republic of Ireland will now be submitted to the European Commission for approval. In the meantime, the real work in relation to the implementation of Budget 2017 proposals will involve various deliberations and discussions leading to the Finance Bill in a number of...
Internal Devaluation and the Irish Crisis
External event contribution The European Trade Union Institute have published a policy inBrief by Tom McDonnell discussing the Irish economic crisis and its aftermath. You can find it here.