The purpose of this blog is to provide information/analysis on the Irish economy. While many commenters make valuable contributions, comments should focus on the topics under discussion. Comments on the integrity (broadly defined) of individuals are not tolerated.
Month: October 2014
Some interesting thoughts (and evidence) from Brian Lucey here.
Worth going through, here are the highlights, download the whole report here (.pdf).
- Ireland ranks 37th of 41 OECD countries, ahead of Croatia, Latvia, Greece and Iceland in a league table measuring relative changes in child poverty.
- The recession has hit 15-24 year olds especially hard. Ireland ranks 14th out of 41 countries in a league table measuring the change in NEET. The NEET league table refers to young people who are “Not in Education, Employment or Training” increased by one point to 16.1%.
- In a Gallup poll surveying people’s perceptions of how their lives have changed Ireland ranks 38th out of 41 countries across the OECD, ahead of Turkey, Cyprus and Greece. Irish families are experiencing additional stress and have a lower overall satisfaction with life. The data further shows that people do not believe children in Ireland have the opportunity to learn and grow every day.
- 18 OECD countries recorded a reduction in child poverty during the same period, including Chile, Australia and Poland, which saw a reduction of 7.9%.
I found the charts on pages 8 and 9 very interesting as well.
The relevant documents published by the ECB are here.
One of the key drivers behind the better-than-expected recovery of the Irish financial sector has been the strong inflow of foreign risk capital, particularly from U.S. “vulture funds” as they are inaptly named. This healthy demand for Irish banking assets has allowed the PCAR and PLAR plans for the domestic banks, and the unwinding of NAMA, to progress successfully. Similarly healthy demand for the Irish assets of foreign banks, such as Irish loan portfolios sold by Ulster Bank, has also contributed indirectly to the Irish financial sector’s partial recovery.
There is a risk capital inflow when a foreign institution buys a troubled loan portfolio or property portfolio from an Irish bank, or from an Irish subsidiary of a foreign bank, or from Nama. These risk capital inflows are not intermediated through the Irish banks and do not appear on their balance sheets. Prof. Brian O’Kelly (DCU) and I were able to trace the 2000-2009 destabilizing inflow and sudden outflow of foreign credit into the Irish banking sector using the aggregate Irish banking sector balance sheet Table A4.1 published by the Irish Central Bank. Question: how can one measure this new source of risk capital inflows? It seems healthy and stabilizing rather than (like in 2000-2009) unhealthy and destabilizing, but it still deserves to be measured accurately. Is it necessary to list all the individual deals and add them up? Has some hardworking analyst done that already? Is it possible to create a quarterly or annual time series? Answers on a postcard (or better on a spreadsheet) are welcome!