This article uses a unique data set to track changes in aggregate net housing equity withdrawal between 1978 and 2012. The analysis covers the peak years of the recent housing boom when it is estimated that net equity withdrawal reached a peak of €8 billion, or 10 per cent of disposable...

This article examines trends in business investment in Ireland. Consistent with the international evidence on investment cycles, we show that business investment in Ireland exhibits large cyclical movements around a long-run trend relative to GDP. Changes in business investment broadly coincide...

This paper introduces a novel dataset on households’ income, assets and debts in Ireland: the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS). The HFCS is an invaluable resource for policy makers, allowing for household-level analysis of the composition of wealth and debt, leverage and the...