Earnings and Low Pay in the Republic of Ireland
A paper entitled ' Earnings and Low Pay in the Republic of Ireland ' was delivered to a meeting of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland on Thursday 14th April. The slides from the presentation are below and the paper (forthcoming in the SSISI journal) was based on an earlier NERI...
Big Idea: A Basic Income for Northern Ireland
NICVA held a Festival of Economics in Belfast on Friday August 12th. Among the big ideas discussed was Basic Income. The slides below are from my 2014 presentation to a NICVA masterclass on Basic Income. They explore the issue in the context of Northern Ireland, looking at the levels, costs, and...
70,000 workers are on the Minimum Wage
A new NERI research paper estimates the number of workers on the minimum wage and further profiles these workers by gender, by the sector they work in and by their employment status (full-time, part-time, permanent, temporary etc). The data, which is for 2014 (the latest available), complements an...
Monday Blog: Cheapness is not competitiveness
With the economic and political fallout from Brexit taking its toll voices have been raised – not surprisingly – to argue against wage increases in the Republic of Ireland. The recent National Economic Dialogue in Dublin was an occasion for such an argument with its proponents claiming to cite data...
Monday Blog: That time of year again
It is that time of year again. Like in the neighbouring island we drive on the left hand side of the road (as a general rule) and have an Annual Big Day (known as Budget Day) when the Minister for Finance announces the budget for the coming year. There is a lead in of many months of discussion in...
Monday Blog: What fiscal space?
In many respects the debate about ‘fiscal space’ is a major turn off for most people as it employs language, terms and concepts that are mechanical, contrived and highly dependent on questionable assumptions. Most policy makers tend to leave the technical details to specialist staff while they get...
Monday Blog: The lost decade of wages
Wages is not an easy topic to consider on the first day of the week which happens to be a public holiday and a mixed one weather wise at that in the Republic of Ireland. Wages form the biggest share of household income for most households. Following years of wage freezes or cuts the economy is in a...
New Paper Models a Minimum Wage Increase
The establishment of a Low Pay Commission in the Republic of Ireland and the renewed focus on low pay and a ‘living wage’ both in Ireland and the UK has revived a growing interest in policies that focus on providing adequate minimum levels of pay for all employees. A new NERI research paper from...
Monday Blog: Wages, Productivity and inflation
Wages are rising again for most workers in most sectors of the economy. The increases are moderate and in many cases the settlements made stretch out over a number of years and are, typically, related to ‘productivity’ measures. Growth in wages and in productivity is good news all round. Yet, the...
Monday Blog: The Tragedy of Hamlet
‘Neither a borrower or a lender be’ so said Polonius in The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare. However, economies in modern times don’t work this way and neither did medieval societies notwithstanding the moral strictures placed on usury. The fact is that income does not...