How people perceive and forecast inflation has 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 unique characteristics of Brian O'Driscoll's international rugby career provide a rare opportunity to obtain a measure of the impact of an individual player on the outcome of a team game. Generally, small samples and selection bias make such estimates unreliable. O'Driscoll, however, was an...

Following the Euro changeover in January 2002, consumers across the Euro Area perceived a sharp rise in inflation, in contrast to official figures. Several theories have been advanced to explain this apparent economic illusion, but they struggle to account for its striking scale and persistence....

A feature of the Irish economy in recent years has been the high net flow of people into the country. The analysis compares owner-occupancy by natives and immigrants in 1995 and 2004. The results show that immigrants have higher headship rates than the native population but have a much lower...

Two laboratory studies investigated the effect of price transparency on consumers' decision-making in the residential electricity market. The first tested whether consumers have difficulties when confronted with unit prices expressed as discounts from standard rates, which vary between...