New Issue of ESR

Vol 41 Issue 4 (Winter 2010) of the Economic and Social Review is available online here.

The Economic and Social Review invites high-quality submissions in economics, sociology and cognate disciplines on topics of relevance to Ireland. Contributions based on original empirical research and employing a comparative international approach are particularly encouraged.

Published papers are listed in the Social Sciences Citation Index.

3 replies on “New Issue of ESR”

Re the Avellaneda and Hardiman paper.
One sentence is needed: Joining the euro in 1999 was lunacy. Why don’t they say this? Probably because stating the obvious would not go down well with the ESR editorial committee. Or maybe there is a need to pad the journal out a bit.

In my view, the Avellaneda and Hardiman paper is excellent – and should be put on the required reading list for all politicos – or, at least, their advisers and backroom staff who might distill material of this nature into something that might penetrate their crania. My principal quibble is that, while it is cogent and comprehensive in terms of diagnosis, the analysis could bear more focused and prescriptive conclusions.

For example, rather than follow through on the baleful impact of executive dominance in the peripherals and recommend a more appropriate separation of the legislature and the executive and the balancing of thier powers, the inference is left hanging that extreme executive dominance may have its virtues when severe fiscal adjustment is required. The point surely is that better governed economies, with a sensible balance between executive and legislative powers, don’t get themselves into this mess in the first place – and therefore don’t need the extremes of executive dominance to dig them out.

The broad conclusion that the EU will muddle through, as it usually does, with a combination of fixes and tweaks is probably justified, but the democratic deficit at its core (largely caused by the similarity of its institutional arrangements to those in France) remains – and the role this has played in the painfully slow way the EU has responded to this crisis isn’t really addressed. Nor is the shift in the German stance from a European Germany to a German Europe.

And, Paddy Orwell, the paper points out that, on joining the Euro, the responsibility for fiscal governance fell on each member-state. Finland was able to manage; Ireland choose not to.

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