Higher rates of economic growth in recent years have led Ireland from being a country characterized by emigration to one where population inflows have become an important issue. This paper contains an analysis of one element of the current inflow. Drawing on data collected in 1998 on over 800...

Increasing earnings inequality has been an important feature of the US and UK labour markets in recent years. The increase appears to be related to an increased demand for skilled labour and an increase in the returns to education. In this paper we examine what has happened to earnings...

The skill levels of immigrants entering the United States has declined in recent decades, but most immigrants to the United States continue to be admitted on the basis of family contacts, without reference to labour market characteristics. This situation has given rise to a debate about the...

The increased supply of skilled labour and institutional factors have been advanced in an effort to explain why some countries have experienced smaller increases in earnings dispersion and in returns to education relative to the United States. Ireland’s supply of skilled labour has increased...

Within the economics literature, the ‘psychic costs’ of migration have been incorporated into theoretical models since Sjaastad (J Polit Econ 70:80–93, <CitationRef CitationID="CR43">1962</CitationRef>). However, the existence of such costs has rarely been investigated in empirical papers. In this paper, we look at the psychic costs...</citationref>

A growing literature within economics has sought to examine the impacts of emigration on sending countries. Some of the studies have looked within families and have investigated how emigration affects those family members who are left behind. In this paper, we explore whether older parents of...

The economic crisis of 2008/9 was felt more acutely in Ireland relative to elsewhere and culminated in the international bailout in 2010. Given the economic collapse, Ireland provides an ideal case-study of the link between wealth collapses and movements in variables such as health and...

In March 2010, the Irish government announced that the age at which the state pension is paid would be raised to 66 in 2014, 67 in 2021 and 68 in 2028. One typical objective of such policy reforms is to provide an incentive for later retirement. The question we address in this paper is whether...