Author: Kevin O’Rourke

At a time when the country is trying to regain competitiveness, it is worth pointing to areas where we are extremely competitive. €150 will get you in to the rest of the season’s home league games at Shamrock Rovers, and you can add kids to the half season ticket at €25 a pop. How much change would you have out of €150 after a Ryanair flight to Old Trafford, a match ticket there, and a couple of prawn sandwiches?

Other League of Ireland clubs also offer good value. So get out and support your local club!

Simon Johnson is having fun with the sayings of Peer Steinbrück over at the Baseline Scenario, but the German Finance Minister is facing stiff competition from Franz Muentefering, who apparently showed up at an unemployment rally simultaneously saying that “We must do all we can at the moment to protect jobs” and that “There will be no third stimulus package”. Talk about chutzpah.

Speaking of stimulus packages, the latest IMF Regional Economic Outlook for Europe makes some interesting points about the size of fiscal multipliers at times like this:

For those of you who haven’t had the time to read the April IMF WEO in full (which you all should), there is a digested version available here.

In light of all the talk about green shoots (amid continuing falls in industrial output in places like Italy and France), one crucial question which the IMF research raises is: to what extent will declining output and rising unemployment create ‘second round’ problems in our financial institutions?

The EC has published its spring economic forecast. They are predicting a 16% unemployment rate for Ireland in 2010.

The last time the world experienced an economic catastrophe on the present scale, governments in Latin America and elsewhere drew the conclusion that reliance on fickle overseas markets was a dangerous thing. World War II only served to reinforce this conclusion.

Similar lessons are being drawn today, with one crucial difference. Back then, the decision was made to artificially decouple national economies from the international economy by developing protected industries that would service the home market. Now, the focus is on lessening export dependence by boosting local demand, which will involve temporary stimulus measures in the short run, but more structural measures in the longer term, for example promoting “social safety nets to give Asian consumers, especially the poor, the confidence to spend”. Moving towards higher wages, a more equal income distribution, and lower savings rates in countries like China, so that more of what is produced there is consumed there, would seem to be among the more benign adjustment scenarios available to the world economy today.