This Letter examines movements in the interest rates charged on variable rate mortgages. The results indicate that variable rates for all lenders closely followed changes in the ECB's policy rate, short-term wholesale rates and tracker rate mortgages until the end of 2008. Thereafter, the...

In this note, the continued fall in Irish house prices is examined. The increased rate of decline in 2011 resulted in Irish prices being almost 50 per cent down from peak levels of mid 2007. Accordingly, in over forty years of house price data, the fall is now one of the most significant across...

In this note, a recently published model of the Irish residential mortgage market is used to generate likely scenarios for Irish house prices out to 2013. The model allows for the interaction between house prices and mortgage credit as well as key macroeconomic variables and housing supply....

This note presents estimates of the likely credit requirements of different sectors of the economy over a short-term horizon to 2013. The measure of credit “demand” used in the analysis is the stock of outstanding loans to the Irish private sector from the resident banking sector. The...

The Prudential Capital Assessment Review (PCAR) 2011 uncovered significant potential losses in the Irish banking sector, leading to a considerable recapitalisation. This letter uses a large sample of the loan level data provided for PCAR 2011 to present descriptive statistics on the SME lending...

The high level of mortgage arrears in the Irish financial system and the associated overhang on economic growth underlines the importance of prudent lending standards throughout the property cycle. Macro-prudential tools such as loan-to-value (LTV) ratio caps and loan-to-income (LTI) ratio caps...

Changes in household consumption, which accounts for more than half of gross domestic demand expenditure, can have a significant impact on output and employment growth. This Economic Letter looks at the main drivers of household consumption, paying particular attention to the impact of the...

Financing for working capital and investment is essential for the survival and growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The recent financial crisis has provoked much debate in Ireland and Europe around the provision of bank financing to SMEs. This article provides empirical evidence, using...

At the end of 2012, almost one-fifth of owner-occupier mortgages were in arrears. A further five per cent not in arrears were classied as "restructured" loans. This Economic Letter looks at the impact of financial distress on household expenditure patterns by comparing the behaviour of...

This Letter describes the construction of a new monthly business cycle indicator of the Irish economy. The index of economic activity draws information from a range categories of data covering output, income, employment, external demand and credit. A statistical method is used to extract a...