Year: 2012

The Irish Mortgage Market: Stylised Facts, Negative Equity and Arrears

Gerard Kennedy and Tara McIndoe-Calder provide an overview of the state of Irish mortgages in this article in the latest CB quarterly bulletin –  available here.

Learning from Sweden

Lars Calmfors has written a new paper, based on his time as the founding chair of the Swedish Fiscal Policy Council.  The paper is here.

Abstract:

The Swedish Fiscal Policy Council (FPC) set up in 2007 is one example of the recent international trend to create independent fiscal watchdogs. The FPC has established itself as an important participant in the Swedish economic policy discussion. The FPC has small resources and a broad remit including employment, growth, income distribution and monitoring of how well the government explains its policies in addition to evaluation of fiscal policy. The reason why it can work is that the FPC acts as a complement to other institutions. The interaction between fiscal policy and other policy areas as well as the possibility to exploit the council’s expertise in several areas are arguments in favour of the broad mandate, but at the same time there could be a risk that interest is diverted away from fiscal issues. The FPC’s experiences illustrate the time inconsistency issues involved in establishing a fiscal council: a government has an incentive to create such a body as a signal that it will pursue responsible and rational policies, but it also has an incentive to constrain the council’s activities once government policies are criticised.

Corporate Balance Sheet Adjustment

Bruegel looks at corporate deleveraging in this paper.

Tax Breaks for Job Creators

Stephen Collins reports that ‘project champions’ and their teams will be given large tax breaks to incentivize them to come to Ireland to set up projects that entail ‘new product development’.

Is this a good idea? Anyone know of any empirical evidence on the effectiveness of these types of tax breaks (assuming that they exist elsewhere)?

Septic tanks

Minister Hogan appears to have waived the septic tank registration fee. That is fair and proper. The sewage bill in cities and towns is picked up by the taxpayer too. Either everyone poos for free, or no one. I favour the latter.

The minister has also indicated that inspections of septic tanks will be “risk-based”, and has redefined that concept as “if pollution is found nearby”. Commonly, risk is an ex ante concept. Inspections are supposed to prevent pollution.

Article 13 of the waste directive (2006/12/EC) specifies that inspections be periodic. Unless the department intends to periodically find pollution near each and every septic tank, the proposed inspection regimes will breach EU law.

That would not be a first. Friends of the Earth reviews the history of Irish waste water and EU law. Ireland has been in breach of EU waste law since the original waste directive (75/442/EEC) of 1975. No wonder that the Commission is seeking to impose fines.

UPDATE: The minister is in a particularly generous mood this week: There will be grant aid to upgrade faulty septic tanks.