The Economy of Ireland (14th edition) takes a holistic examination of the Irish Economy in light of events including the Celtic Tiger boom, recession, recovery and a global pandemic. The textbook considers the evolution of the Irish economy over time; the policy priorities for a small regional economy in the eurozone; the role of the state in policy making; taxation and regulatory policy; and the challenge of sustainable development. This provides a framework for analysing policy issues at a national level, including the Irish labour market and migration, inequality and poverty, and the care economy. The book then considers issues at a sectoral level, from agriculture and trade to the education and health sectors. Packed with the latest available data, contemporary examples and analysis of topical issues, this is an ideal text for students studying modules on Irish Economics.

Most Irish historians agree that the southern Irish economy performed very badly between 1920 and the early 1960s. This volume critically compares new data for a fresh perspective. While providing a comprehensive narrative for a specialist audience, it also addresses those aspects of the record that are of interest to general readers. 25 illustrations.

The questions surrounding how the Irish economy was brought to the brink - who was to blame, and who should pay for these mistakes - have been rightly debated at length. But beyond this very legitimate exercise, there are deeper questions that need to be answered. These questions relate to why we made the decisions we did, not just in the last ten years, but over the last eighty. How did certain industries become more prominent at the expense of others, banking as opposed to fisheries, international markets as opposed to indigenous industry and job creation? Are our problems structural in nature, and most importantly, what do we need to know to make sure that this crisis does not happen again? These are the questions set by this book. It will look at the development of the Irish economy over the past eight decades, and will argue that the 2008 financial crisis, up to and including the IMF bailout of 2010 and the subsequent change of government, cannot be explained simply by the moral failings of those in banking or property development alone. The problems are deeper, more intricate, and more dangerous if we remain unaware of them, but also potentially avoidable in the future if we break the cycle.

The UK’s departure from the EU has profoundly affected the politics and economics of Northern Ireland. Brexit has shattered a political accommodation that was taking shape in the region that involved nationalism and unionism refraining from aggressively pursuing their own objectives or making excessive demands on each other. Economically, it has made the task of building an innovative economy in the region immeasurably more difficult. Without radical change, Northern Ireland is destined to be an economic outhouse of an under-performing UK economy. This book represents the first systematic study of the impact of Brexit on the political and economic future of Northern Ireland and Ireland. It provides a detailed assessment of the consequences of the Belfast Agreement and highlights how Brexit imperils the advances that have been made since its signing in 1998. It makes a dispassionate assessment of the changes that may be necessary to create a stronger Northern Ireland economy. On the one hand, demands for the immediate unification of Ireland that are now being made loudly and persistently by nationalists and republicans are considered too precipitous. The two economies on the island are not yet ready for Irish unity. On the other hand, the book argues the case for a radical reorientation of the Northern Ireland economy through the incremental creation of an all-Ireland economy. The book cuts through the rhetoric that characterizes so much discussion about the Northern Ireland economy and provides a hard-headed appraisal of not only its structure and performance, but also the economic feasibility of Irish unity.

Technical changes in the first half of the nineteenth century led to unprecedented economic growth and capital formation throughout Western Europe; and yet Ireland hardly participated in this process at all. While the Northern Atlantic Economy prospered, the Great Irish Famine of 1845–50 killed a million and a half people and caused hundreds of thousands to flee the country. Why the Irish economy failed to grow, and ‘why Ireland starved’ remains an unresolved riddle of economic history. Professor Mokyr maintains that the ‘Hungry Forties’ were caused by the overall underdevelopment of the economy during the decades which preceded the famine. In Why Ireland Starved he tests various hypotheses that have been put forward to account for this backwardness. He dismisses widespread arguments that Irish poverty can be explained in terms of over-population, an evil land system or malicious exploitation by the British. Instead, he argues that the causes have to be sought in the low productivity of labor and the insufficient formation of physical capital – results of the peculiar political and social structure of Ireland, continuous conflicts between landlords and tenants, and the rigidity of Irish economic institutions. Mokyr’s methodology is rigorous and quantitative, in the tradition of the New Economic History. It sets out to test hypotheses about the causal connections between economic and non-economic phenomena. Irish history is often heavily coloured by political convictions: of Dutch-Jewish origin, trained in Israel and working in the United States. Mokyr brings to this controversial field not only wide research experience but also impartiality and scientific objectivity. The book is primarily aimed at numerate economic historians, historical demographers, economists specializing in agricultural economics and economic development and specialists in Irish and British nineteenth-century history. The text is, nonetheless, free of technical jargon, with the more complex material relegated to appendixes. Mokyr’s line of reasoning is transparent and has been easily accessible and useful to readers without graduate training in economic theory and econometrics since ists first publication in 1983.

Here Ireland's premier economic historian and one of the leading authorities on the Great Irish Famine examines the most lethal natural disaster to strike Europe in the nineteenth century. Between the mid-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, the food source that we still call the Irish potato had allowed the fastest population growth in the whole of Western Europe. As vividly described in Ó Gráda's new work, the advent of the blight phytophthora infestans transformed the potato from an emblem of utility to a symbol of death by starvation. The Irish famine peaked in Black '47, but it brought misery and increased mortality to Ireland for several years. Central to Irish and British history, European demography, the world history of famines, and the story of American immigration, the Great Irish Famine is presented here from a variety of new perspectives. Moving away from the traditional narrative historical approach to the catastrophe, Ó Gráda concentrates instead on fresh insights available through interdisciplinary and comparative methods. He highlights several economic and sociological features of the famine previously neglected in the literature, such as the part played by traders and markets, by medical science, and by migration. Other topics include how the Irish climate, usually hospitable to the potato, exacerbated the failure of the crops in 1845-1847, and the controversial issue of Britain's failure to provide adequate relief to the dying Irish. Ó Gráda also examines the impact on urban Dublin of what was mainly a rural disaster and offers a critical analysis of the famine as represented in folk memory and tradition. The broad scope of this book is matched by its remarkable range of sources, published and archival. The book will be the starting point for all future research into the Irish famine.

Swiss citizens continue to enjoy high living standards on a range of dimensions. Economic growth has slowed but the healthy labour market is still supporting incomes and consumption. However, risks to the outlook are building. Monetary policy has been very accommodative but low interest rates are adding to financial risks. Fiscal policy is sound and debt low. There is scope to make greater use of available fiscal space. Adapting to population ageing is becoming pressing. This trend, along with digital transformation, will bring new opportunities for the economy and society, but challenges as well. Policies have not kept up with rising life expectancy, particularly the statutory retirement age. Updating the pension system and lowering barriers to working longer would ensure that workers continue to receive adequate incomes during retirement. Ageing will also pressure health care spending and increase demand for long-term care. Policies to contain costs and reduce fragmentation in the system can help maintain access to quality care. Switzerland is well placed to seize the opportunities offered by new technologies. Addressing the barriers to adoption, improving the availability of information and helping workers adapt will enable firms, individuals and governments to reap the benefits of digitalisation. SPECIAL FEATURE: POLICIES FOR AN AGEING SOCIETY