Like a bubble, these sorts of things peak then mock throughout the depression, like the Empire State and the Dubai follies.

The internet will destroy most “universities” in the present meaning of the term. But llike an unsustainable bubble, it can take a long, long, long, while to do so.

Decades of depression ahead is the best to look forward too. World wide calamity and war is on the bad side of the future.

Adam Smith’s invisible hand seems more like vanity every day?

Apologies for accusing you unfairly. The last para. in my 10:14 comment was directed at the point you raised; but I also believe that universities have a role in enhancing the economic literacy of the population generally. Since it seems rankings are required I can understand that they will be determined by the extent to which universities are at the cutting edge of research, but I believe the wider pedagogic role should not be discounted.

Individual academics are of course only responsible for their own performance and for their own hiring decisions. Unfortunately, only a minority does well. For that, blame the system — but as universities are self-governed to a degree, that comes right back at us.

I see three major ills. First, output is not measured — indeed, any attempt to measure it is met with the sort of hostility you see above. Second, the system is too fragmented — there are just too many universities, all of which lack critical mass. Third, pay is too egalitarian and too high on average — which means that the bad people have no reason to leave and but you still can’t attract the real top.

@Tim O’Halloran and Geronimo,

You are not the first (and, I’m pretty sure you won’t be the last) to use this site to berate the Irish economics profession for a perceived failure to shout from the rooftops about the bubble economy and the risks of the economic calamity that subsequently transpired - and that proved even more calamitious than the most battle-hardened among us expected.”

That is exactly what I am NOT doing. Of course, Irish academic economists are not to blame for the bubble and crash. Very clever to keep raising that MacGuffin. What Irish academics are responsible for is their abysmal international rank in research performance.

I’m not touchy, by the way, because none of this involves me. I’m just tired of people like you who put the blame where it does not belong because they’re too lazy to inform themselves.

We could be going round in circles here. Governments will never voluntarily reveal data or information - or ensure systematic collection and publication of these - that might allow effective scrutiny of their sins of omission and commission. We’re back to citizens and their public representatives demanding it and ensuring the executive complies. And it is, of course, linked to FoI.

To extend your metaphor, I’d expect the bus-driver to flag it to his union if the maintenance of the fleet’s brakes was systematically neglected. I’d be dissapointed if he refused on the grounds that he was not an expert mechanic.

Why so touchy? I work in IT. As far as I am concerned the IT industry, or rather that a subsection in the IT consulancy houses committted a great fruad on the world economy 10 years ago i.e. the Y2K scam. I said it was a con before after and during the scam. It made me look out of touch with modern computer science, it did not impress my employers, but it was the truth, now universally acknowledged, except by those wedded tp the absurdities of computer ’science’. I don’t feel insulted as a member of a profession if someone alludes to that fiasco, why should I?

Economists were involved in seriously misleading the public in the bubble and were not contradicted by their colleagues in the universities (for whatever reason ). It is a nonsense to discuss the merits of any economics faculty in this state following the greatest failure of economic policy ever seen in a developed country. It may be a sin of ommision but it was a mighty ommision.

An additional source of frustration, not just to academics, is the lack of data on which to base independent studies. It appears that in Ireland of the past, only commissioned studies had access to data source. This is now being partially corrected by increasing openness on the part of the Central Bank and on the requirements of the EU Maastrict limits for full state accounts to be published. The CSO also seems to be doing a bit more.

There is, however, still a shocking dearth of concrete statistics - house sale prices, incomes (by NACE) on a timely basis, any information at all on small businesses or the differing sectors of the self-employed. It is possible to find out more about the conditions of the surface of the sun than it is about what specifically tax revenue is spent on.

So economist are kind of stuck following the data - they can only write about what there is data to support. In part this is a result of a move to a more methodological structure (so one is not permitted to ’suppose’, one must ‘prove’ or at least ‘infer’), but it is also (and mainly in my view) down to hoarding of aggregate data that should not be otherwise secret.

You may be being a tad dismissive. I sense a justifiable public frustration at the perceived “dogs that didn’t bark” - and are still not barking to any discernible effect. If, as Paul Volcker recently observed “Economics is fundamentally about efficiently allocating resources so as to maximize the welfare of individuals” and people observe that resources are being misallocated and the welfare of individuals is being damaged, it is, perhaps, understandable that some may begin to wonder for what are they paying economists. The fact that relatively little output of academic and research economists is of direct relevance in the policy sphere - and that even less has any impact - may add to this understandable annoyance. And it is difficult to convince voters that determining demand for the kind of policy analysis and input they seem to desire is in their hands and in those of their public representatives.

The pr/economists in the banks had communication departments, pr agencies and entertainment budgets.

Then there’s Pat McArdle’s smooth move from Ulster Bank to the Irish Times, which raises further questions.

“Even if many economists work well away from the area of public policy, that should have stopped no-one from commenting on hte Irish bubble”

There are a small number of national media outlets and it is only in recent times that the Irish Times have added a second ‘opinion’ page.

I’m sure that many more articles from economists were binned over the years than published.

The pr/economists in the banks had communication departments, pr agencies and entertainment budgets.

The interest in developing a ‘media personality’ as in politics involves ego and time investment in ensuring that say RTÉ producers will have your name pop-up when there is a relevant story.

As evidenced by your reaction, there is the inevitable pull to become a ‘media personality’ because otherwise, an accomplished individual may well be viewed as irrelevant.

The conservative Irish have been slow to adapt to the web and many people still think that the broadcast media and newspapers are the ‘media.”

I get material from US economists but in almost 14 years, I have never got any article from an Irish economist - - even though for a particular audience, it could have much more “longevity” than a mainstream newspaper article.

I fear you may may missed the thrust of my (unfortunately long) comment. I would contend we need to distinguish between (and among) (a) informed comment, (b) policy analysis and (c) policy analysis that is embedded in the process of democratic governance.

You will get plenty of (a) on this site - in particular from the named contributors on the side-bar. Producing (b) requires time and resources and unless someone is prepared to pay for it, it generally does not happen. The head of a department (or a senior academic able to source external funds) may be able to do or direct this type of work, but it has to fit within the academic and publication requirements. In addition, as the late Tony Judt pointed out in one of his last essays “If words fail..”: “The professionalisation of academic writing – and the grasping of humanists for the security of theory and methodology – favours obscurantism.” For (c) to be produced there has to be a demand within the process of governance - preferably from the legislature.

In Ireland, where they exercise ‘executive dominance’ over the Oireachtas that is more extreme than, perhaps, most of the other EU parliamentary democracies, governments tend to ignore and/or rubbish (a) and (b) if they are critical of government policyand they make sure there is no demand for (c). In addition, because government and goverment agencies and bodies are the principal sources of demand for economic consulting services and reports, those who are in position to provide them often find that “he who pays the piper calls the tune”.

I have previously asserted that if every living Nobel (non-freshwater) economics laureate had gathered weekly in front of Government Buildings for the last decade issuing jeremiads against government policy it wouldn’t have made a blind bit of difference. It for is members of the Oireachtas to exercise the authority voters have delegated to them to demand (and pay for) the necessary independent economic analysis to hold governments to account.

Even if many economists work well away from the area of public policy, that should have stopped no-one from commenting on hte Irish bubble. It was obvious abd required no detailed research. Morgan Kelly’s paper of 2007 , warnign of the crash, (?) famously contained not a single equation.

I cannot see how a democracy can operate if the only independant source of economic knowledge (in the univesrites and publicly funded institutes ) is staffed by people who think commenting on public affairs is working ‘pro-bono’ (a la Richard Tol). We would be left with no-one except the infamous ‘Chief Economists’ to ‘inform’ public debate.

NUI Galway has 526 faculty, NUI Maynooth 252 (according to WP). At low faculty sizes it is difficult to manage a decent score on ARWU, which is almost solely about absolute, not per-capita achievement.

(PS: could someone approve my comment in moderation?)

You are not the first (and, I’m pretty sure you won’t be the last) to use this site to berate the Irish economics profession for a perceived failure to shout from the rooftops about the bubble economy and the risks of the economic calamity that subsequently transpired - and that proved even more calamitious than the most battle-hardened among us expected.

Although some contributors here have taken umbrage at the perceived intemperate nature of your comments, I sense a justifiable frustration at the lack of openness and public engagement in the economic policy-making process. But I fear your fire is misdirected. Indeed, the existence of this site, provided free by public-spirited academic economists, is a very welcome development as it has shown an enormous demand for public debate on these pressing economic issues.

As Richard Tol has pointed out, very few academic economists (and researchers in other bodies) are engaged in economic policy issues - and those that are have little time and resource to devote to ‘pro-bono’ engagement. There are contractual employment constraints and the over-riding reality is that there is no revenue-generating demand to call forth the necessary application of resources and effort.

In any system of democratic governance the principal source of demand for this type of economic input should come from legislators seeking to gain an understanding of the economic issues and impacts as they enact legislation, as they scrutinise policy proposals emerging from the government machine and as they seek to assess the economic arguments being advanced by special interests.

Even in straitened economic circumstances, there is a strong argument for moving some of the policy-making resource from government departments to corresponding Oireachtas Committees, to beef up resources and capability both in departments and in the Committees and to secure a flow of qualified external advice , to require Ministers to vacate their Oireachats seats on appointment and to empower Oireachtas Committees to scrutinise not only Ministers, but also their senior officials.

The Oireacthas has the power to do this on behalf of the people - and the ability to bend a reluctant executive to its will - but the party hierarchies are more focused on strengthening their factions and securing or retaining political power than are they are on good governance. In any event, so much sovereignty on monetary, fiscal, financial and economic policy has been assigned to the EU institutions that little remains, but it makes it more important that what remains is exercised in the public interest.

And as regards this focus on the quantification and ranking of academic quality, my focus would be less on quality and more on quantity to ensure the widest spread of a basic level of economic competence. The modern abaility to access quality anywhere in the world will raise the game everywhere, but an economically literate electorate is more important for good governance.

As a matter of interest, have either of you calculated how much each department (UCD and Chicago) costs to run and how much each brings in in grants? Just curious.

August 16th, 2010 at 8:27 am

@Geronimo
Note that the SJTU ranking does not correct for the size of the department. Ireland’s small departments would fare badly even if every individual were brilliant (which too often they are not).”

Ok, Lets correct for size

University of Chicago has 31 faculty in economics and is ranked 2nd in the world. UCD has 29 faculty in economics. What should UCD’s ranking be in the Economics arena? If size is the determining factor, UCD should perhaps rank 3rd or 4th. For God’s sakes, UCD is completely off the radar.

This ain’t rocket science, something else is going on.

The Great Recession hit the entire economics profession from leftfield. There is no correlation between someone’s pre-recession rank and her views on the fragility of the pre-recession economy. Conformism has nothing to do with our inability to see this coming.

@Geronimo
Note that the SJTU ranking does not correct for the size of the department. Ireland’s small departments would fare badly even if every individual were brilliant (which too often they are not).

How do you explain the fact that the very best paid academics in the entire world (Irish professors and lecturers) rank lowest in research performance. Good God, NUI Maynooth and UCG are so poor that they are not even ranked. But the boys and girls in Maynooth and Galway are still cashing those huge pay checks.

…irony?

A very rough look at the numbers suggests to me that if TCD and UCD were accounted for as a single institution it would rank at the upper end of the 101-150 range while being of unremarkable size. Whether that’s evidence in favour of Irish university mergers or against taking ARWU very seriously is another question. (I notice that Arizona State’s leap up the rankings apparently overlaps with a period of mergers and expansion in size.)

Overall ARWU suggests that the Irish university system isn’t benefiting as much as it should from our proximity (physical and otherwise) to the UK. Whatever about toppling Stanford or UCL, you’d expect that at least one university in the country could realistically match, say, Bristol or Sheffield as one of the clutch of considerable universities clustered together around the UK’s handful of truly elite institutions.

Can you not see the absurdity of accepting the validity of a measuring system that rewards conformity (ie no. of citations) when you are all members of a profession that has so recently so spectacularly failed the world and this country in particular , not from a lack of expertise , from an unwillingness to confront a dominant ideology?

The general public pays the wages of university economists, not the non tax residents oligarchs who run this state. The profession as a whole has let those people in the last decade and should display some humiility and shame about that, even if the contributors to this site may not be as guilty as most.

There is very careful management of economic news in this country, which the mainstream media seem happy , even proud to go along with (the green jersey and all that). People turn to sites like this for serious disinterested comment. Some are looking for some estimation for the future and thelikelihood of their losing their jobs. They do not appreciate being met by this navel gazing obsession with university rankings from people with secure jobs paid for by the ordinary citzen.

And careful with the ‘ignorant’ jibe Mr Tol. I was studying economics when you were in infants school, long before it became the ideological joke that it is today. Whatever it says on university economists’ job description they have a clear duty to the people who pay their wages. While many of them have been free with thier opinions since the Graet Recession began, they conceded the airwaves to ‘Chief Economists’ from financial institutions in the years leading up to the bust. That abnegation materially contributed to the current crisis.

A little hunmility is in order and a little less prissy posturing.

If you’d read the job description of an university economist, you would realize that teaching, university management, and fundamental research are the three top priorities — with community services a distant fourth and public services a remote fifth. The economists in the universities in Ireland and elsewhere have gone far beyond the call of duty, freely lending their time and expertise to the public and the government during this Great Recession.

Your comments are more than just ignorant.