In this paper we provide empirical evidence on the determinants of firm start-up size using data for the manufacturing sector in Ireland, and compare our results with recent findings for Portuguese manufacturing industries (Mata and Machado, 1996). To allow for firm heterogeneity between firm...

We analyse the sources of divergent national inflation rates among EMU member countries. At one level, we review the Irish 'outlier' experience; at another, we estimate panel regressions for the 1999-2001 period. We highlight the role played by differential exposure to euro exchange rate movements...

A fiscal policy rule in which taxation is a function of existing government debt (a "wealth-tax") is usually believed to be effective in providing stability. Using a dicrete-time version of Blanchard's overlapping generations model, extended to include money and an endogenous labour supply we...

The paper highlights the increased dispersion in net external positions in recent years, particularly among industrial countries. It provides a simple accounting framework that disentangles the factors driving the accumulation of external assets and liabilities (such as trade imbalances,...

The paper uses a cross-country dataset to investigate the determinants of individual attitudes towards immigration.  There are three main conclusions.  The first is that attitudes towards immigration are not a function of economic interests alone; rather, they also reflect nationalist sentiment...

This paper focuses on the observed empirical relationship between fiscal rules and budget deficits, and examines whether this correlation is driven by an omitted variable, namely voter preferences. We make use of two different estimation methods to capture voter preferences in a panel of Swiss...

We model the growth and failure of small business in Irish Manufacturing during the period 1973-1994. We estimate the effect of start-up size on the employment growth while controlling for the business cycle, the life cycle and the probability of business survival, amongst other factors....

The following paper presents a set of philosophical arguments that extend the standard set of property rights under the classical libertarian perspective to include the individual rights to ownership, management and transfer of risk and uncertainty. The paper shows that an extension of property...

We construct consumer price indices for Canada, mainly based on the expenditure records of Canada’s federal penitentiaries. Regional price variation was much greater in Canada in the late nineteenth century than in the northern U.S. The new data suggest substantial price decline to 1900....