Nevin Institute: Quarterly Reports

The latest reports from the Nevin Institute are available here.

21 replies on “Nevin Institute: Quarterly Reports”

Good to see in Chart 1.2a “Employment by sector between the peak in 2007 to the latest available data in 2012 in the Republic of Ireland, (seasonally adjusted)” ….

…..that the sector “Information and Communication” is bigger now than it was then! Looks like all the PR Guys and Gals are going to have to lift the unemployment gloom for the country.

An alternative way of looking at it is that the PR cake is getting smaller but there are more people chasing it! 🙁

On a more serious note, there’s a lot of good information in these reports. Thanks Philip.

they say it all in the preamble…

“Aside from savings under the Croke Park agreement we do not see any value on grounds of fairness, macro-economic impact and budgetary savings in cutting yet further into education, health and social protection”

what they actually mean about cutting “yet further” is teachers salaries, doctors nurses and consultant salaries….you simply can’t take any reports like this serious even if much of the analysis is correct. The starting premise is that we will fight tooth and nail to maintain croke park cartel anti-competitive agreement at all costs…now lets have a look at some facts to focus on how we can justify this….

can someone tell me why the NEVIN institute even exists? Is the ESRI not sufficient?

Is it really necessary for the bloated union movement in this country to construct another monument to its own importance.

The report itself is merely propaganda for our union’s narow self interests, focused on maintaining public sector pay rates (excluding new entrants) for the 300,000 public sector employees. This blinkered view is not worthy of the Irish economy website and I’m surprised to see it posted

@PR Guy,
That would be information and communications technologies services firms (including software) doing well. I think the CSO would classify your profession’s firms as a minor subset of professional, scientific and technical activities.

@ John Maynard Keynes,

I suppose it is all about Balance, anything outside the Nevin institute is considered RIGHT WING.

The Nevin Institute addresses this by providing a Left wing approach.

The fact that the country’s books are totally unbalanced is irrrelevant.

Sure is’nt it grand when you are spending somebody else’s money!

Does the proposal to adjust by 2.7 bn instead of 3. 5bn have merit when coupled with an investment stimulus? And is there merit in raising taxes to EU levels rather than lowering Spending to Baltic levels? Please discuss and consider the evidence.

@Tom,
I’ll agree with you on raising income taxes to EU levels if you’ll agree with me on reducing income tax progressiveness to EU levels.

It’s always important to know who’s paying the piper! In this case its true that this institute is funded by the Trades union movement and so their commentary will have this bias. The ESRI is taxpayer funded but also seems to have a bias! As a matter of fact this country seems to be nothing but “bias”.

Say something about inter-generational equity and Age Action are off the blocks…..

This is our fundamental problem at the moment – Everyone has an opinion about how someone else should improve/change/suffer but most are unwilling to improve/change/suffer themselves.

I feel really bad about where we’ve ended up! Is there no way in which we can work together as members of the same society to address the problems we all can see in a way we can all accept?

I maybe just suffering from Recession Fatigue at the moment but surely there must be someway we can move forward with “the can” instead of “the can” being kicked down the road on its own………..

Where is the evidence that Ireland has a more progressive income tax system than other countries? We need data on the income distribution of households, tax paid (including USC and PRSI) for a recent year. And we need to add in indirect tax. In fact no such data exist. Partial and incomplete data are available. EU-SILC provides an estimate but more representative administrative data are needed. so where is the evidence that taxes are more progressive here? we lack the evidence. what we do know is total revenue as % of GDP, or GNP or some hybrid is below EU27 average. that must change.

@Tom Healy
More progressive taxes?
Well, SILC 2010 is all we have: http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/silc/2010/silc_2010.pdf

80% of households are in net receipt from the state (their social transfers exceed the tax they pay).

Indirect tax? Prefer a German model would you? I suggest you look at the list of VAT exempt items in Ireland and compare it with a list of VAT exempt items in Germany. If you don’t drink or smoke, barring utilities, you pay almost no indirect tax in Ireland.

The problem in Ireland is that ordinary folks pay too little tax and receive too many transfers. Too many goods and services are exempt from indirect taxes. That’s where your missing percentage is.

On average across all households, we are giving transfers of €226.84 (I’ve taken out contributory pension) on tax income of €185.46. That’s a loss of €41.38 per household before we get to anything else that income tax is supposed to help fund.

@seafóid

Róisín Shortall hit the brick wall of the big boy strokers club.

Rellly and Hogan are its leading lights – the country is in safe hands!

@The Labour Party

!

Favour taxes over spending cuts, urges think tank
By John Walsh, Business Correspondent

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

The Government should protect employment levels and domestic demand by maintaining total expenditure at 2012 levels in December’s budget.

To pay for this, revenue should be increased by 1% of GDP through higher taxes on incomes more than €100k and a wealth tax, the Nevin Economic Research Institute (Neri) says in its autumn review of the economy.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/business/favour-taxes-over-spending-cuts-urges-think-tank-208846.html

@ Tom

There is lots of good stuff using EU-SILC data in chapter 16 here. Fig 16.2 shows that the Irish direct taxes/cash benefits system is the second most effective at reducing inequality, albeit with 2007 data. Table 16.4 suggests we have a fairly progressive direct tax system.

Just one in eight better off on dole, ESRI finds

DAN O’BRIEN, Economics Editor

ONE IN eight people currently in receipt of unemployment benefit is better off staying on welfare than moving to paid employment, according to new research by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).

The paper, published today, strongly rejects research by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris that claims the gap between earned income and welfare income is among the smallest in the 34-member bloc. The authors stress the need to counter the OECD research because recent International Monetary Fund reports, which have appeared to advocate reductions in welfare rates, have been “strongly influenced” by the OECD.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2012/0927/1224324471997.html

This certainly deserves a thread following on the various discussions held earlier on the blog on this topic. If for no other reason than to attempt to educate the far right rabid luddite wing of the tiresome lemmings’ tendency that inhabits the blog at times!

It is, of course, important to look at the net impact of taxation and transfers.

A necessary part of doing this is to look at the progressiveness of the income tax and social charges system in isolation from other factors. The OECD’s annual Taxing Wages report does a good job on this for low and middle incomes. It shows taxation on low incomes in Ireland is exceptionally low relative to other European countries, rising to merely low on middle incomes, and towards Euro-normal levels at the high end of the spectrum covered.

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