This volume shows how joining the European Union helped Ireland energize what had been a stagnant agricultural backwater. Ireland became a prosperous globalized hub for multinational firms exporting technologically sophisticated products and services. But there have been some severe policy...

This paper considers the impact on growth and convergence in the EU over the last 20 years of investment in human capital. It examines the current adjustment of a range of economies to the external imbalances at the beginning of the current crisis. Finally it considers how the adjustments under...

This paper first considers the origins of the Irish economic crisis. It discusses where the policy failures occurred, to what extent they were foreseeable, and how certain key financial institutions performed in the run up to the crisis. In the light of this analysis the paper then considers...