Monday Blog: Northern Ireland has taken greatest hit on living standards
A key issue in the run-up to the UK General Election has been changes in living standards. While economics is not everything in the universe, the level and change in living standards is a very important factor in shaping the climate of public opinion. Not just the level and change in living...
NERI Seminar: A Future Worth Working For
Yesterday's seminar given by the Director of the NERI, Tom Healy, focused on setting the parameters for a clear, long-term vision for the Irish economy to emerge. The seminar is based on a recent working paper that argues this vision must be based on concrete goals that can be observed, measured and...
Monday Blog: Education at the cutting edge of a new vision
[Text of address to be given at Irish National Teachers Organisation Annual Conference in Ennis, Co Clare, on 6 April 2015] Easter week marks the time when many education related organisations hold their annual gathering. It is an occasion of discussion, meetings, announcements, statements...
Monday Blog: We never had it so good?
Some years ago, during the Roaring Celtic Tiger period, I had occasion to attend a conference which treated the idea and measurement of Human Well-Being. Speaking to a former Taoiseach who had just joined the proceedings, I informed him that the participants were not entirely sure if life was...
Employment in the public sector
As shown in the latest edition of the Quarterly Economic Facts, the public sector in the Republic of Ireland accounts for 18.4 per cent of total employment—not far from the average level across OECD countries. The public sector employees make up 20 per cent of the total number of people working in...
NERI Seminar: Deprivation on the Island of Ireland
Trutz Haase was the speaker at the most recent NERI seminar on deprivation on the island of Ireland. Over the course of the presentation, Trutz provided an overview of the Irish deprivation indices, covering the conceptual underpinnings of the 2011 Pobal Haase-Pratschke (HP) Deprivation Index for...
Government spending and revenue in the Republic of Ireland
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 with that of other European Union economies. The basic method of comparison is to measure total...
Monday Blog: Unlearning 'economics'
Economics has been described as a ‘science’. A ‘science’ is a body of knowledge and methods which uses evidence and measurement linked to the exercise of testing, repeating and predicting. Most first-year students of ‘economics’ will be taught that it is a ‘positive’ science in the sense that it...
Wealth in Ireland - at last some rebust data
Despite its prominence in various public policy discussions over recent years, detailed information on wealth in Ireland has been sparse. For the most part discussion on the distribution of wealth, and concepts such as a wealth tax, were based on hunches and guestimates or assumptions that the...
Monday Blog: Voilà la différence
As you ponder last Saturday’s match between France and Ireland you might consider some of the striking differences in both parts of the world. The culture, institutions and politics of France are very different to those in Ireland where, to some extent, the political culture has been shaped by the...