Simon Johnson and Peter Boone are writing in the New York Times‘ Econmix blog about Ireland again.
Johnson is, of course, a former Chief Economist of the IMF, an institution that has largely endorsed Ireland’s austerity measures and suggests more may be needed.
However, Johnson and Boone’s comments are that current government policy isn’t working, and this [...]

According to Brian Cowen today, NTMA’s Oliver Whelan has “made it very clear that we are seen as a stable economy, forging ahead with taking decisions.” This was said in relation to Moody’s decision to downgrade Irish debt to Aa2 from Aa1. So, while rating agencies carry the usual health warning considering their part in [...]

The CSO has just published the first quarter National Accounts.  If you want to avoid the spin go straight to Michael Burke’s cogent analysis on Progressive-Economy.  Here I just want to look at one long-term development - a very concerning trend relating to the very structure of the Irish economy; namely, the growing gap between [...]

Ah, a phrase we will be hearing throughout the next few weeks of wonderful, joyous (albeit, Ireland-less) World Cup football. It’s also an apt phrase for the reporting of economic reviews. IBEC has produced its quarterly commentary and the media was full of green-shoots:
‘Ibec has revised upwards its economic forecasts for 2010 and 2011 . [...]

Why did I think the Ernst & Young forecasts wouldn’t make big news? Did I really imagine that its key projections on the deficit and employment would provide a sobering counter-point to all the ‘whistling past the economic graveyard’ commentary we get everyday. Yet, the analysis is worth poring over in detail, not because E&Y [...]

Monday night’s Frontline discussion was an object lesson in how to miss the point - a really big point in a really big way. In discussing spending cuts we were treated to all sorts of suggestions - from getting rid of Minister’s drivers to shaving departmental estimates; all with a view to saving a few [...]

How fortunate we are to have a Government that knows what it is doing in these times of economic and fiscal crisis. And even more fortunate that we have commentators who can report this in an informed manner. This is important when considering the terrible flap going on in the international markets with all this [...]

The economist Michael Burke has an article in Tribune Magazine which makes the point, for a UK audience being sold the Conservative Party line, that austerity measures are economically counter-productive, and that during a period which has seen such a significant decline in private investment and consumer spending the last thing a government should do [...]

In a previous post we saw that public sector labour costs are below-average by EU-15 standards. The argument that Irish public sector workers are ‘over-paid’ in relation to their European counterparts holds no water whatsoever. However, that doesn’t answer the charge that, regardless of comparative costs, we just have to cut public sector wages because [...]

With industrial action in the public sector ramping up a couple of notches, it is worth revisiting a couple of issues in relation to pay. A critical issue is the fiscal benefit or otherwise that accrues to the Exchequer from cutting public sector wages - I will examine this in the next post. Here, let’s [...]