Sterling's departure from the exchange rate mechanism (ERM) in September 1992 precipitated a crisis for Irish exchange rate policy that was resolved, for the time being at least, by the decision to devalue at the end of January 1993. During the intervening 4 1/2 months, the economy laboured...

This paper analyzes the role of tax policy in the transformation of the Irish economy from the 1980s to the 1990s. Details are provided of the marked underperformance of the economy in the 1980s, evidenced by rising unemployment, falling employment, stagnant living standards, and a looming...

This article reviews the transformation of the Irish economy since the early 1980s. Credit for the initial stabilisation of the economy is given to the shock therapy of cutting expenditure, favourable exchange rate and other external developments. Possible explanations of the higer rate of...

For many decades Ireland's output per capita ranked about twenty-fourth among the world's industrial nations. Suddenly, in the mid-1990's Ireland started to move up, from twenty-second in 1993 to eighteenth in 1997 and an amazing ninth in 1999. The many facets of Irish success over these years,...