The success of the Irish economy over the last decade has rightly attracted enormous attention from both domestic and international commentators. The remarkable phase of high economic growth rates throughout the 1990s and into the new century has led to the Irish economy being dubbed the...

This paper presents some new results on the effects of technology shocks on hours worked based on structural VAR specifications containing various measures of US productivity growth and hours. These specifications can produce different answers depending on which sector of the economy is...

The one-sector Solow-Ramsey growth model informs how most modern researchers characterize macroeconomic trends and cycles, and evidence supporting the model's balanced growth predictions is often cited. This paper shows, however, that the inclu- sion of recent data leads to the balanced growth...

Following a preliminary discussion of various aspects of the Irish "regional problem", this paper examines the evolution of employment shares, unemployment rates, wage levels, and interregional commuting patterns in the regions of the Republic of Ireland since the 1980s. The evidence shows that...

We investigate the ability of expected utility theory to account for simultaneous gambling and insurance. Contrary to a previous claim that borrowing and lending in perfect capital markets removes the demand for gambles, we show expected utility theory with nonconcave utility functions can...

The commercial state-sponsered bodies comprise an important element of economic activity in Ireland. The Exchequer makes a substantial financtial contribution to these bodies. In this article the author traces the origins and rationale of the commercial state bodies, examines their performance...

One of the most important debates in Irish economic history has concerned the long-run effects of the Great Irish Famine, with some arguing that it had only temporary effects on the economy and others seeing it as a major demographic and economic watershed. This paper adapts the theoretical...