Ireland’s “Celtic Tiger” years saw GDP per capita rise from 60% of the EU average to 120% of the average over the course of the 1990s, with a growth in employment of about 40% over the period 1994-2001. What were the consequences of the boom for returns to education and wage inequality?...

On the 1st of January 2016 the Irish National Minimum Wage increased from €8.65 to €9.15 per hour, an increase of approximately six percent. We use a difference-in-differences estimator to evaluate whether the change in the minimum wage affected the hours worked and likelihood of job loss of...

We use a unique question from the Irish Labour Force Survey that captures the reasons for workers being paid below the minimum wage. Compared to existing work, this allows us to more precisely identify sub-minimum wage workers. We find that 5.6 percent of minimum wage workers are paid below the...

A minimum wage increase could lead to adverse employment effects for certain sub-groups of minimum wage workers, while leaving others unaffected. This heterogeneity could be overlooked in studies that examine the overall population of minimum wage workers. In this paper, we test for...

This paper uses panel data and econometric methods to estimate the incidence and the dynamic properties of overskilling among employed individuals. The paper begins by asking whether there is extensive overskilling in the labour market, and whether overskilling differs by education pathway. The...

Interpretation of the phenomenon of graduate overeducation remains problematical. In an attempt to resolve at least some of the issues this paper makes use of the panel element of the HILDA survey, distinguishing between four possible combinations of education/skills mismatch. For men we find a...