Having peaked in early 2007 Irish house prices have fallen steadily. Negative equity occurs if house price falls result in the house value being lower than the outstanding debt. Many in negative equity will be unaffected and will continue to pay their mortgage without difficulty. Negative equity...

Perceptions and forecasts of inflation have the potential to impact on a range of economic outcomes. We reveal large, systematic overestimation of inflation by Irish consumers, which varies by social group. In contrast to previous work in this area, our models suggest the upward bias and the...

The purpose of this paper is twofold. We first produce a labour market profile of non- Irish immigrants who arrived in Ireland in the ten years to 2003. We then go on to use the labour market profile in estimating the impact of immigration (non-Irish) on the Irish labour market. Immigrants are...

We explore the consequences of rising house prices for the openness of the Irish labour market. Since many immigrants are in the household formation age group, and tend to be highly skilled, we argue that the boom in house prices, by reducing the attractiveness of Ireland for potential...

This paper reviews the international literature on house price indices, looking at the basic methodologies employed, the variables chosen for the indices and the functional forms used. Ideas are sought for future improvements to an Irish index and tentative assessments are made of how Irish...