Year: 2010

Reputation

Some blog readers have bristled at invoking “reputational damage” as an argument against policies such as defaulting on bank liability guarantees. I have sympathy with this reaction given the elasticity of the concept, and because it is often thrown out as a sort of argument stopper. But there is still no getting away from the fact that Ireland’s reputation for institutional soundness matters for both domestic and international investment. It is hard not to worry that this reputation is being damaged by some recent crisis management policies.

Continue reading “Reputation”

IMF Staff Report on the Ireland Deal

The detailed IMF report is available here.

The Consolidated Foreign Claims of the Irish Banks

The Irish Central Bank has developed a new data series that shows the consolidated foreign claims of the six domestically-active banks headquartered in Ireland (ie it does not include the activities of the affiliates of UK banks in Ireland and it corresponds to the list of ‘guaranteed’ banks).

This note clarifies the vast differences between these claims and those reported in the BIS database.

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.

Reading List

Today’s FT carries op-eds by Lorenzo Bini-Smaghi on the costs of sovereign default (here) and by Klaus Regling on the feasibility of monetary union without fiscal union (here).

This week’s Economist compares Iceland and Ireland here.