We study the effects of carbon tax and revenue recycling across the income distribution in the Republic of Ireland. In absolute terms, a carbon tax of €20/tCO2 would cost the poorest households less than €3/week and the richest households more than €4/week. A carbon tax is regressive,...

I measure the rate of aversion to inequality in consumption as expressed in the development aid given by rich countries to poor ones between 1965 and 2005. Over time, OECD countries have become less concerned about international inequity. Even for a fairly leaky bucket, the consumption rate of...

This paper analyses the medium-term effects of a carbon tax on growth and CO2 emissions in Ireland, a small open economy. We find that a double dividend exists if the carbon tax revenue is recycled through reduced income taxes. If the revenue is recycled by giving a lump-sum transfer to...

This paper compares the distributional effects of price cap and lump sum transfer policies to aid the affordability of subsistence electricity consumption. A lump sum transfer is more progressive than a comparable price cap on all units of electricity. We identify conditions under which these...

In this paper we use annual time series data from 1960 to 2008 to estimate the long run price and income elasticities underlying energy demand in Ireland. The Irish economy is divided into five sectors: residential, industrial, commercial, agricultural and transport, and separate energy demand...

On the basis of anonymous (or cross-sectional) analyses, income losses during the Great Recession in a number of European countries were concentrated among the poorest ten per cent of the population. The anonymous approach however, which simply compares the distribution of income at two points...

We impute a global social welfare function that is consistent with the burden sharing in the Kyoto Protocol and in two proposals for a post-Kyoto treaty. The Kyoto Protocol favored the EU. The Frankel proposal for a post-Kyoto treaty continues the favorable treatment of the EU, while the EU...

A large literature has emerged around the strong association between income inequality and average life expectancy and a range of health outcomes including mental well being. Three possible explanations for the association have been offered: that the association is a statistical artefact; the...

Irish perinatal mortality rates have been falling steadily for a number of decades but evidence from the 1980s showed pronounced differentials in mortality rates across socio-economic groups. Between 1995 and 2007 Irish gross national product increased from 60 per cent of the EU average to 110...