The Irish Economy

Hashtag is #ieconf, this liveblog will host tweets and comments from the Croke Park conference.

The report is available here.   See also the background paper by Robert Hagemann here.

Readers may be interested in the Garret FitzGerald Spring Seminar to be held at UCD on 10 and 11 of February. This is the first of an annual series of “Spring Schools” to be named in Garret FitzGerald’s honour focused on topics that were particularly close to his heart.

This year’s theme will ‘Democracy in the 21st. Century’ and the event will include an opening keynote from Mary Robinson on the evening of February 10th.

Further details can be found here. Those wishing to attend are requested to pre-book a space. Contact Mary.Buckley@ucd.ie.

Official funding runs out at the end of 2013. Today’s manouvre by the NTMA has converted some two-year debt into three-year debt, at a cost. This is not ‘getting back in the market’ in any sense which confirms debt sustanability. No new debt has been issued. The ability to sell new three- or six-month T-bills is not relevant either.

Think about Belgium. The ten-year bond yields 4%, having been briefly higher during the panic. Belgium has a debt ratio about 100%, GGB deficit about 4% and primary deficit about 1%. Belgium is likely (not certain) to be OK and could probably sell 10-year paper in some size. The 4% interest rate is just about consistent with debt sustainability given 2% inflation and a little bit of economic growth.

Ireland’s exit debt ratio will be higher, there are contingent liabilities we all know about and a deficit down to 4% in 2014 would be doing rather well. Can Ireland expect to sell 10-year bonds, in size, in 2014, at 4% yields?

There is a 2025 bond in issue with a 5.4% coupon. It will be an 11-year bond in 2014. The curve should be flat in this zone. So if you think yields on mediums will be 4% in two years time, you can work out the target price for the 2025 bond in 2014. It is about 111.

The bond has recently been trading about 85. So if you think we will be back in the market in a meaningful sense in 2014, on terms as good as Belgium, you can pick up a nice 5.4% coupon twice, and a 30% capital gain, by taking a flutter.

Alternatively you can insist that Ireland can (sustainably) ’get back in the market’, and stay there, in size, at higher yields. This is entirely conditional on economic growth resuming quickly and at decent rates. The debt sustainability analysis in the IMF staff report to the executive board should issue in a few weeks and will be a must-read.

The draft of the new personal insolvency bill is available here.

This Friday January 27th in Croke Park we will hold a conference on the Irish Economy. This conference is one of a sequence of Dublin Economic Workshop meetings in collaboration with the Universities (in this case UCD Geary Institute and UL). The conference programme is below. Registration will begin at 8.30 on Friday morning, with the first two sessions beginning at 9am. The final panel session is expected to finish at 6pm.

A few housekeeping issues.

RSVPS. In case there are late RSVPs or cancellations, please email clare.delargy@ucd.ie. If you haven’t received confirmation of attendance, please get in touch with Clare so she can add you to list.

Getting there. The conference will take place in the Croke Park Conference centre. The centre is accessible by public transport, with Dart, Bus and Luas lines within a 15-minute walk -please see here for further details.

There is also complimentary car parking for conference attendees on a first come first served basis. The closest car park to the conference centre is the Canal car park, on St Margaret’s Avenue off the North Circular road.

Location. The conference will take place in the Hogan Mezzanine Suite. Access to the suite is through the Jones’ Street entrance to the Hogan Stand, across from the Croke Park Hotel. There will be signs directing you to the suite upon entering the stadium, and there are lifts available.

Catering. There will be coffee breaks at two stages during the day. Please note that lunch will not be provided, but you will be able to avail of catering facilities at the centre.

Social Media. There is complimentary wi-fi access at the conference centre, and for those of you on twitter, we will be using the hashtag #ieconf throughout the day. We’ll aggregate the tweets on the Irish Economy liveblog.

Irish Economy Conference Programme, Croke Park, Dublin - January 27^th 2012

The NTMA offering circular for the 4.5% 2015 government bond can be read here.

Update: NTMA release on the results can be accessed here.

I am now planning to talk at Friday’s conference about promissory notes, ELA and all that. I will post a link to a detailed presentation when it’s finished, so I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this now.

However, I do want make a brief comment on the recent media commentary on the promissory note issue. Most of this commentary has motivated the issue in the same terms as this article in today’s Irish Times by Arthur Beesley:

State support for the bank is being financed with expensive promissory notes which carry a comparatively high interest rate of some 8.6 per cent.

This is considerably in excess of the prevailing rates for stability facility loans, leading the Government to explore whether it is feasible to draw down additional stability fund aid to replace the promissory note scheme.

Arthur is a fine journalist but I’m afraid this is not a good way to think about this issue. The interest on the promissory notes is going from one part of the state (central exchequer funds) to another (the IBRC). Since the interest rate on these notes is higher than the average interest rate on IBRC’s liabilities, the additional margin can be retained inside IBRC and handed back to the state at a later date. 

So the key issue in relation to the burden on the taxpayer of the IBRC is the amount of liabilities that need to be paid out to bondholders and central banks, and the timing of these repayments, not the interest rate on the promissory note.

I’d note that Arthur’s colleague, John McManus, correctly explains this aspect of the promissory note issue in this article (though other parts of the article are not correct, such as the claim that the Central Bank of Ireland had to borrow the ELA funds from the ECB and that the ELA needs to be collateralised by marketable assets.) The true interest cost of the promissory notes is the interest on the €3.1 billion a year being borrowed from the EU and IMF to hand over to the IBRC, not the notional interest rate on the promissory notes.

Jamie Smyth profiles the high-tech cluster in this FT article.

The review document is here.

Paul Krugman links to the latest McKinsey report on debt and deleveraging. There’s a lot of useful data in there, but this chart struck me as worth posting on this blog, with little comment required.

Teagasc economists have just released their Situation and Outlook Report for the Irish primary agriculture sector for 2012 (proceedings here and presentations here). In 2011 there was a significant and welcome recovery in farm incomes (up 33% over 2010) although this was entirely due to higher prices and higher subsidies – the volume of agricultural output (at basic prices) remained unchanged despite slightly higher volume consumption of intermediate inputs.

The Teagasc view is that the value of gross output in agriculture will fall back slightly in 2012, due to a combination of lower production in some sectors and lower prices in others. There will be some savings on input costs, but lower subsidies in 2012 (due to a carryover of payments in 2011) means that operating surplus in agriculture is expected to fall by 12%.

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PublicPolicy.ie

Job Description -  Senior Researcher

PublicPolicy.ie is a new independent Centre supported by Atlantic Philanthropies.  Its purpose is to carry out and support independent research to inform fiscal policy choices in the Republic of Ireland, communicate the results effectively and stimulate constructive discussion amongst policy-makers, civil society and the general public.   We currently have an exciting opportunity for a Senior Researcher to join the organisation at this early stage and to play a pivotal research role within the organisation.

Role Purpose : The Senior Researcher will be responsible for ensuring that ‘PublicPolicy.ie’, its staff and its various working groups and initiatives are provided with the research and information required to carry out their work effectively.

Key responsibilities

· Carry out research on designated subjects

· Produce policy briefs, conference and seminar papers on research carried out

· Keep abreast of research findings and key developments in the area of fiscal policy

· Support working groups and members’ access to information on aspects of fiscal policy

· Provide support to interns on allocated projects

· Provide support on other assigned tasks as required

Role Requirements

We seek applications from people of talent and commitment to help lead the research function. The ideal candidate will have the following qualifications, skills, abilities and experience;

· A post-graduate qualification in a relevant discipline (e.g. economics)

· A proven track record in leading public policy research & analysis

· A deep understanding of how the public policy process functions

· Excellent oral and written communications skills

· An ability to communicate to a variety of audiences using a variety of media

· An ability to work independently and as part of a team

· IT Skills

This is a fixed term contract to October 2013, which may be extended for a further period. To apply for this role, please email your Curriculum Vitae and covering letter to Donal de Buitleir (ddebuitleir at eircom.net) by 1^st February 2012. For further information see this article.

The Irish Times reports

NEARLY 50 hospital consultants and almost 1,000 nurses of different grades are set to leave the health service before new pension changes come into effect at the end of February, the first official figures show.

and

In other parts of the public service about 1,130 staff in the education sector are understood to have applied to leave

This brings back memories (misty water-coloured memories) of pre-election promises

Additional Reduction in Back-Office Public Sector Numbers: As set out in our Reinventing Government plan, Fine Gael will reduce the size of the public service by 10% – just over 30,000 – without undermining key front-line services in health, policing and education, through over 105 reforms to cut back-office bureaucracy and delivery improved value for money. This means that Fine Gael will reduce back-office administrative positions in the public service by an additional 18,000 over and above the 12,000 reduction partners to seek further efficiencies in work practices

I guess these are back-office consultants, nurses and teachers.

Today’s developments that Minister Noonan hopes to see parts of the Anglo debt reduced are most welcome. From an Irish Times report:

On the Anglo debts, Mr Noonan said troika officials were preparing a joint technical paper, drawing on Irish suggestions, to reduce the overall burden involved in repaying the principal of the €31 billion promissory note.

This loan arrangement predates the EU-IMF programme and was agreed to fund an effectively insolvent Anglo Irish Bank but is seen by the Government as too expensive.

“We think there’s a less expensive way of doing it by financial engineering, and we’re not talking about private-sector involvement or restructuring,” said Mr Noonan in Berlin.

Writing in the latest issue of Business and Finance, Karl makes a similar point. Read the entire piece, especially a precise description of what promissory notes are and how they work, but this quote struck me as important.

It is true that the Irish taxpayer has taken on far too big a burden in ensuring that bondholders at Anglo and INBS were repaid. But quibbling about bondholders misses the elephant in the room. It is the huge burden of repaying ELA, not bondholders, that is going to bleed the taxpayer dry for the next twenty years.

It is time for the Irish government to declare that it has no intention of putting €3.1 billion towards repaying ELA in March and that it has arranged an agreement in principle with the Central Bank of Ireland that the state will repay this debt when it has fully recovered from its current crisis.

If my understanding of the legal situation is correct, then Patrick Honohan would only require the support of seven other members of the ECB Governing Council to proceed with this plan. This could easily be achieved with the support of Mario Draghi. Ireland has borne a heavy burden in the name of European financial stability. It’s time for a quid pro quo from super Mario.

The Troika statement is here.

The Department of Finance’s statement is here.

In the comments on my piece on Irish Water, Paul Hunt reports back from his attempt to get the costings for water metering etc from the PWC report. This request was refused as it would be “commercially sensitive”.

To cite Paul, this is balderdash.

Irish Water will be 100% state-owned. Citizens of Ireland (of two of which I am the legal guardian) have the right to know what is going on in a company they (will) own.

Ireland is an unwilling party to the Aarhus Convention, which grants access to data except “where such confidentiality [of commercial and industrial information] is protected by law in order to protect a legitimate economic interest”. As Irish Water will be a monopoly, I do not think there is a “legitimate” economic interest in hiding data.

Unfortunately, state-owned companies have made a habit of hiding behind “commercial sensitivity” when there is none.

Courtesy of Broadsheet.ie, this looks convincing.

Some readers may be interested in this job opportunity at the IIEA. The deadline for applications is this Friday.

Michael Mussa, chief economist of the IMF during the various crises of 1991-2001, died this week.  This WaPo obituary provides a brief but interesting account of his tenure.

The Minister for Transport, Mr Varadkar, in commenting on whether a referendum will be necessary for Ireland to sign up to the fiscal compact is reported to have made the commonplace point that

There’s only one reason why you have a referendum and that’s where there is a requirement to change the constitution.

Em, not quite.

Apart from a political view that a referendum might be desirable in any event, there is a particular mechanism in the Constitution of Ireland for holding a referendum, even when a measure does not require constitutional amendment. This is set out in Articles 27 and 47, whereby one-third of the Dáil and a majority of the Seanad could petition the President to decline to sign and promulgate a Bill “on the ground that the Bill contains a proposal of such national importance that the will of the people thereon ought to be ascertained.”

The detailed provisions of Article 27 envisage that if such a petition were successful, the will of the people could be ascertained either by referendum (in which at least one-third of those on the register would have to vote “no” in order to veto, by virtue of Article 47) or, in effect, by a general election.

I guess the fiscal compact itself may not in fact be a Bill, but presumably the detailed fiscal provisions of the agreement will have at least that legal form. Apart from whether the required numbers of TDs and Senators would line-up for the petition which Article 27 envisages, whether or not this mechanism will be applicable seems to me, as a non-lawyer, to turn on whether the Bill in question is a “Money Bill”. Money Bills appear to me to exempt from Article 27 (reading back to Articles 23 and 22) but I may be mis-reading that, so perhaps we might get some legally informed views in comments.

The ninth ISNE annual conference is being held in UCC on Thursday 23rd and Friday 24th of August.  This year’s organisers are David Butler, Robbie Butler and Justin Doran.

Researchers wishing to submit their work for consideration are advised to submit an extended abstract (300-400 words) to isne2012@gmail.com. Applicants are asked to include their name, institute or affiliation, current academic status (PhD, Young Professional, Masters) and JEL code(s) for their research on submitting an abstract.

The deadline for the abstract submission is Friday, 1st of June 2012.
Applicants will receive notification by Friday, 22nd June 2012.

There will be two plenary sessions:

• Professor Geoffrey Hodgson (University of Hertfordshire) Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Institutional Economics, and
• Professor Bernard Fingleton (University of Cambridge) Editor-in-Chief of the Journal Spatial Economic Analysis and formerly co-editor of the Journal Regional Studies and a Fellow of the Regional Science Association International and the Spatial Econometrics Association.

For more details visit www.isne2012.com

Date: Thursday January 19th 2012
Topic: Economic crisis and the restructuring of wage setting mechanisms for vulnerable workers in Ireland
Speaker: Dr Michelle O’Sullivan, Department of Personnel and Employment Relations, University of Limerick
Venue: INTO Training Centre, 38 Parnell Square, Dublin 1 (map attached)
Time: 4-5:15pm (Tea and coffee from 3:50pm)

To register your interest in attending and for further details please e-mail info@eru.ie

Further seminars are planned for February 22nd and March 14th 2012 with others to follow throughout the year. Details will be circulated in advance of these seminars.

The ERU (Economic Research Unit) is a new research company/think-tank on the Irish Economy established in September 2011 and funded by a number of unions affiliated to the ICTU. It aims ‘to influence policy outcomes that have the greatest effect on the achievement of equity and fairness in the political economy on the Island of Ireland, to the benefit of working people, their families and communities and the enhancement of the quality of life of all people living on the island of Ireland, through the provision of high-quality macro and micro economic research and analyses, awareness raising and capacity building programmes’. The think tank is currently in its set-up phase and a formal launch will occur in March 2012.

For further details contact info@eru.ie

Over Christmas I read Ed Walsh’s excellent autobiography Upstart. Upstart details the creation of the National Institute of Higher Education, Limerick, which subsequently became the University of Limerick. Given where I work, but also because it’s a fine story, I found it unputdownable. In part Upstart details the political machinations required to get UL university status. I wonder if the Institutes in the Southeast saw an early draft?

Today’s ‘news’ as reported by Sean Flynn that the Minister for Education will announce the creation of a technological university for the Southeast might give the impression it was. Sean Flynn took to Twitter recently to say the Department of Education has denied it is going ahead, but “big wheels in Cabinet want it .it (sic) will happen!”

It sounds like there have been a serious discussion ongoing about a new university behind closed doors. Given the state of the State’s finances, and also the sector most of the contributors to this blog work in, as well as the contribution of universities in general to Irish life, I think this news, or leak, or whatever, is worth a thread on this blog.

The public consultation on the establishment of Irish Water opened today. See here and here.

As I’ve argued before, charging for water and waste water is right and proper; and doing so through a state-owned, tightly regulated monopoly is a reasonable solution (although you can argue for a mutual company instead).

The contents of the position paper published today were well-leaked and contain little news. The position papers confirms that Irish Water will also be responsible for waste water and waste water treatment. Council staff will be transferred to Irish Water, probably with a considerable improvement in working conditions.

The Commission of Energy Regulation will regulate Irish Water. There is no sign of the creation of a super-regulator. The new CEWR will be inter-departmental, though, an interesting experiment.

The department persists in two follies - mandatory roll-out of water meters, and free allowances - but a third folly - universal metering - has been dropped.

The time table has been slipping, which is no surprise as it was so ambitious. The public consultation was supposed to start in October, and Irish Water was supposed to start work in January. Originally, the plan was to install 1.4 mln meters in 2 years time; that is now 1.0 mln meters in 3 years time - less than half as fast. It is not clear to me that this would support 2,000 jobs: 500 meters per job, installing two meters in three days.

To make up for lost time, the Department of the Environment now intends to start the work of Irish Water. This is a mistake. Like any department, Environment is struggling with staffing as it is. Utilities are better at being utilities than departments are. Utilities are also better at resisting cronyism than departments - every TD will want a water metering contract to go to their favourite engineer cq plumber. Irish Water will wrestle with the legacies of the county councils, and it is now being saddled with a departmental legacy as well.

Maybe the public consultation will further improve the plans.

The comments on the RIchard Tol thread refer to migration patterns. The graph below is from the December 2011 IMF report and highlight the growth in the net emigration of “native Irish” up to April 2011.

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Philip asked me to comment on the recent media coverage of my person (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17).

The background is as follows. I have regretted that I never wrote my memoirs of my time in Hamburg. I plan to write a multi-media text “book” and tweet the key messages. To hone my book-tweeting skills, I decided to tweet my memoirs (under the hash tag #cuimhnícinn). The chapter on the ESRI was tweeted early on January 1st. I had assumed that all Irish twitterati would be asleep, but Colm Keena was not. And then RTE called, and nothing much had happened that day, and so on.

All this is ironic for someone who has repeatedly warned against celebrity economists. And yes, the Late Late Show called too.

Among our reasons to leave are the economic prospects of Ireland, and particularly of families like ours with a triple exposure to public finances: two salaries and kids in education. I called that “10 more years of austerity”, where “10 years” really stands for “a long period”. This was apparently news to some. Although really not my area, the facts are simple. The programme for government and the deal with the Troika have that the primary deficit will be reduced to zero by 2014-5. Public debt will reach 125-135% of GDP by then, pension reserves will be depleted, and valuable state assets will have been sold. That means that, after 2015, a large share of tax revenue will go towards interest payments, debt reduction, and rebuilding of reserves – rather than to things that make life worthwhile. If debt is to be reduced to 60% GDP, then 10 more years of austerity seems fairly optimistic. I do expect, however, that the ECB will monetize part of the debt.

I also said a number of things about the ESRI. I enjoyed working there, and hope to pass to my students the things I’ve learned while there. However, I also think the ESRI should work harder on transparency and quality management. ESRI data and models should be in the public domain.

There has been no independent investigation of the accusations of racism against some ESRI staff. Indeed, ESRI management has repeatedly denied the possibility that there could be any truth in such allegations.

The ESRI is not as independent as it should be. The ESRI does not have a budget to pursue issues that no one in government wants to hear about. That is, government departments and agencies set the research agenda. That is fine in a way. Blue skies research belongs at university. The ESRI does policy-relevant research – that is, answers questions posed outsiders. However, it would be better if part of the ESRI budget would be reserved for projects identified by the opposition, by the public, and indeed by ESRI researchers (who often come across major and minor public policy mishaps but lack the resources to pursue them).

Funding agencies do not influence the conclusions that the ESRI draws.

Funding agencies do influence the conclusions that the ESRI draws attention to.

The grant-in-aid is about 1/3 of the ESRI budget. About 1/3 is international and corporate money. And about 1/3 comes in through competitive tenders from the various parts of the Irish government. The funding agencies often have a clear idea of the desired result, and award the contract to the bidder who is most likely to obtain that result. Can a bidder uphold her integrity and be loyal to her employees at the same time? One solution is to have a specialized government agency to manage research contracts. Tenders would tend be awarded on merit, recalling that pliability is not a merit.

That agency could also keep an eye on the output: Some projects never seem to reach a publishable result.

This does not require a new government body. The research managers (and their budgets) in the various government departments and agencies could be transferred to, say, Science Foundation Ireland.

As to academic freedom at the ESRI, the chronology of my contributions to this blog tells it all.

Jean Pisani-Ferry has written a useful essay.

Summary:

The search for solutions to the euro crisis is based on a partial diagnosis that overemphasises the lack of enforcement of existing fiscal rules. Europe’s leaders should rather address the euro area’s inherent weaknesses revealed by the crisis.

At the core of euro-area vulnerability is an impossible trinity of strict no-monetary financing, bank-sovereign interdependence and no co-responsibility for public debt. This Policy Contribution assesses the corresponding three options for reform: a broader European Central Bank (ECB) mandate, the building of a banking federation, and fiscal union with common bonds. None will be easy.

The least feasible option is a change to the ECB’s mandate; changing market perceptions would require the ECB to credibly commit overwhelming forces, and the ECB is simply not in a position to make such a commitment

The building of a banking federation, meanwhile, involves reforms that are bound to be difficult. Incremental progress is likely, but a breakthrough less so.

This leaves fiscal union. It faces major obstacles, but a decision to move in this direction would signal to the markets and ECB a commitment to stronger Economic and Monetary Union. One possibility would be to introduce a limited, experimental scheme through which trust could be rebuilt.

Last summer, the Dublin City Centre Business Association commissioned Felim O’Rourke and myself to examine how Dublin’s tourism product could be rejuvenated. Our report is at www.dcba.ie.  If short of time, skim the 33 pages reviewing existing tourist attractions, since each was afforded one page, regardless of its attractiveness. Among the conclusions and recommendations are, 

1. The Irish Government may not be able/willing to burn the bank bondholders, but it should liquidate Treasury Holdings, rather than allow NAMA to keep it alive. This would cause the 25 year PPP on the Irish Convention Centre to lapse, and save the Exchequer €0.7bn.
2. My colleague and I are retired, and thus our recommendations are not modified by the expectation of future work. But in 80 years of commercial activity, neither of us has ever come across such a combination of overspending and underperformance as is exhibited by the national tourism organisations (NTO’s). We did not make specific recommendations for organisational change, but your respondents may wish to take up this baton!
3. The Irish national tourism organisations (NTO’s) perform poorly when benchmarked against Scotland, Edinburgh and Amsterdam. In 2009, if Scottish rates of attracting tourists were applied to Ireland, the budgets of Irish NTO’s would have been reduced by two-thirds, or by c. €100m. p.a.. Amsterdam attracts eight times the tourist numbers per employee of Irish NTO’s, at just over one-half the cost per employee. Within Ireland, there is a mismatch between visitor numbers and NTO spending: Dublin accounted for 32% of tourist revenue in 2009, but only 6% of current spending by NTO’s was spent in Dublin.
4. This is sectoral stuff, microeconomics. At the micro, micro level, Dublin tourism is going to have to function in future with lots of ingenuity and with little finance. For example, the municipal food market should maintain cleanliness standards with frequent water sluicing on tarmacadam floors, rather than by (much more expensive) investment in ceramic floor tiling. Again, where a tourism product is space-constrained, such as the Book of Kells or the Anne Frank house, it is cheaper to extend visiting hours, rather than to invest in expanded waiting areas. Let’s have similar cost-constraining initiatives in other major areas of social expenditure, such as health, education and social welfare.

This industry and this report are too important for Ireland’s future to be consigned to the neglect of the authorities.