David Cronin and Daniel McCoy observe that, in contrast to most other EU member states, Ireland is fortunate to have time on its side to deal with the fiscal sustainability issues that an ageing population will present. This is so both because the Irish economy has had several years of strong...

The paper on the Irish experience by Cronin and McCoy highlights how specific features of the economy may account for large differences in the results of the two approaches – those based on a production function and those relying on statistical filters – and hinder accurate estimates of the...