Author: Liam Delaney

See below for the programme for the return of the Irish postgraduate and early career economics workshop (previously “ISNE conference”). All are welcome to attend. Thanks to School of Economics in UCD for providing financial support.

Irish Postgraduate Early Career Economics Conference

UCD Geary Institute

Friday May 4th

9am to 915am: Opening Remarks: Professor Liam Delaney (UCD), Dr. Lisa Ryan (UCD), Dr. Ben Elsner (UCD), Dr. Michelle Queally

Session 1a: 915am to 1045am	Session 1b: 915am to 1045am
Sanghamatira Mukrhrejee (UCD) “Factors influencing early electric vehicle adoption in Ireland”.	Aine Doran (QUB) “Population Dynamics in 19th century Ireland”.
Bryan Coyne (TCD) “The impact of a subsidised weatherisation scheme on Irish domestic energy consumption”.	Gayana Vardanyan (TCD) “The long-run impact of historical shocks on the decision to migrate: evidence from the Irish Famine”.
Martin Murphy (ESRI) “Predicting farm’s non-compliance with regulations on emissions of nitrates”.	Man Wing (Lorraine) Wong (UCD) “The effect of language proximity on the labour market outcomes of the asylum population in Switzerland”.
10.45am  to 11am Coffee
Session 2a: 11am to 1230pm	Session 2b: 11am to 1230pm
Florian Gerth (CBOI) “Entry and Exit Dynamics of UK firms in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis”.	Patrick McHale, BA  (NUIG) & Thomas Plunkett, B.Pharm (NUIG) “Healthy Eating Meal Plan Preferences Amongst a University Population: A DCE Approach”
Tammana Adhikari (UCD) “Deals versus Rules?”.	Kenneth Devine (UCD) “Mortgage Choice and Expectations”.
David Jordan (QUB) “Doomed to decline?: Interwar industrial performance and policy in Northern Ireland”.	Ivan Petrov (UCD) “Information Asymmetry, Split Incentives, and Energy Efficiency in the Residential Rental Market”.
1245pm to 130pm Lunch
Session 3a: 130pm to 3pm	Session 3b: 130pm to 3pm
Dora Tuda (TCD) “Does higher unemployment increase income inequality: evidence from European labour markets using a discrete choice experiment”.	Iordanis Parikoglou (UCD/Teagasc). “The impact of innovation on farm level productivity: evidence from the Irish dairy sector”.
TBC	Stefano Ceolotto (TCD). “The impact of moral licensing on pro-environmental behaviours”.
Philip Carthy (ESRI) “Is employment growth affected by the introduction of broadband services?: Evidence from Ireland”.	Linda Mastrandrea (UCD) “Linking retail pricing policy with the decarbonisation of the electricity sector”.
Coffee 3pm to 315pm
Session 4a: 315pm to 445pm	Session 4b: 3pm to 445pm
Deirdre Coy (UCD) “Health formation in an RCT Early Childhood Visiting Programme”.	Eoin Corrigan (UCD) “Capricious Redistribution: The Scale and Impacts of the Local Authority Rent Subsidy”.
Anne Devlin (QUB) “Why is work-limiting disability in Northern Ireland so high?”.	Stephen Byrne (CBOI) “Solving the wage puzzle: Does the ‘nonemployment rate’ explain wage dynamics?”.

 

 

 

Call for Papers: Irish Economics Postgraduate and Early Career Conference 2018

The Irish Society for New Economists (ISNE) workshop for postgraduate and early career researchers will take place in University College Dublin Geary Institute for Public Policy on Friday May 4th. The event is aimed at PhD students and early career researchers across the Irish universities. It will take the form of thematic sessions with faculty discussant input at each session, along with keynote talks, and engagement with policy and industry. We welcome submissions of papers from PhD students and early career researchers in institutions on the island of Ireland.

The ISNE was formed to encourage research, information and social links among economists at the early stages of their careers in Ireland. From 2001 to 2013, the Irish Society for New Economists (ISNE) held eleven workshops in Ireland for postgraduate and early career researchers. The events were run mostly by PhD students in the Universities, including events hosted by UCD, TCD, Limerick, Maynooth, Cork, and Galway. The conference is intended for advanced Masters students, PhD students, and young professionals in the early stages of research working in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. We strongly encourage those working on economics-related research to submit. Eligibility to present is not related to age. The meeting will feature the work and findings of scholars in economics and related fields, and will provide an excellent opportunity to present your own research results and work in progress.

As the conference is free to attend, no financial assistance for travel or accommodation can be provided. Researchers wishing to submit their work for consideration are advised to submit an extended abstract (300-500 words) at this link. Applicants are asked to include their name, institute or affiliation, current academic status (PhD, Young Professional, Masters) and JEL code(s) for their research on submitting an abstract. All of the above information should be attached in a /single PDF or Word File/. The deadline for the abstract submission is 15th April 2018. Applicants will receive notification shortly afterwards. The organising committee consists of Dr. Lisa Ryan, Dr. Benjamin Elsner, and Professor Liam Delaney at UCD, and Dr. Michelle Queally at NUI Galway. Please direct inquiries to liam.delaney@ucd.ie

Guest post below from Muiris MacCarthaigh from Queen’s University Belfast:

Budget 2018 and a tale of two Departments

The budget to be published this Tuesday will be the first since 2010 to be prepared and delivered by a single Minister, Paschal Donohoe T.D., who holds both Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform portfolios.

As will be widely remembered by readers of this blog, following the 2011 general election the Department of Finance was essentially split in two, with that Department retaining control over taxation and reform of the financial services sector. (Indeed for a while consideration was given to renaming it the Department of Finance and Taxation). The ‘spending’ side of the Department was removed and combined with public service reform and industrial relations into the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER).  As well as providing for a significant reallocation of central government functions, and an organizational focus for administrative reform, DPER served the useful political purpose of allowing the Labour Party hold another central government portfolio.  This also gave it co-equal status with Fine Gael at the Economic Management Council or ‘War Cabinet’.

What is not widely appreciated is the enormity of the task faced by officials in the Department of Finance over the pre and post-election period to prepare for and then execute the process of creating the new Deparment, all in a matter of weeks. When beginning the research for my recently published book on DPER over the 2011-16 period, the sheer scale of this undertaking quickly stood out.  Led by a small group of officials, it involved trawling the Irish statute book for all primary and secondary legislation concerning the responsibilities of the Minister for Finance in law from 1922 onwards (as well as some pre-1922 treasury-related functions), before that Department could be disaggregated into two.

The range of responsibilities for which the Minister for Finance had a legal responsibility included such diverse issues as provisions for compensation applications arising from property damage during the 1921-23 Independence and Civil War period, to consenting on borrowings for capital investment for commercial state enterprises. All told, it resulted in a process involving the transfer of over 4000 specific legal functions originally assigned to the Minister of Finance.

In respect of Budgets, a number of interviewees for my study identified how the institutional split between revenue-raising and expenditure functions had created a useful ‘buffering’ effect on demands for increased expenditure by line Departments. Prior to DPER’s existence, the relevant section in the Department of Finance assessed new expenditure proposals from a line Department, and the merits of raising taxation or other forms of revenue to support the measure were also considered in that same Department. With the decoupling, appeals to DPER for extra resources fell largely on deaf ears as the Department and its Minister had no say in taxation matters.

The quality of engagements between DPER and other Departments were also deemed to have taken a step change by virtue of the economic evaluations provided for them by the IGEES.  Additionally, the strong relationship between Ministers Howlin and Noonan were consistently referred to as being vital to the Irish crisis response, including budgetary coherence, and by proxy to the stability of the government as a whole.

At the launch of my book, Minister Donohoe identified that the Taoiseach had been keen to maintain the two Departments when announcing his Cabinet following his election in June. Whether this was to preserve the integrity of DPER’s reform agenda, to place coordination of fiscal and budgetary policy in one Minister, or to avoid accusations of a return to pre-crisis arrangements for government departments is hard to say. As is how long DPER will continue to operate as a separate Deparment .The economic crisis may be a decade old, but its effects on budgetary policy and the organisation of Irish government continue to be felt.

Dr Muiris MacCarthaigh is Senior Lecturer in Politics and Public Administration at Queen’s University Belfast. His new book, Public Sector Reform in Ireland: Countering Crisis, has just been published by Palgrave.

Following up from the previous post, here is a first version of a map of the history of economics in Dublin.  The purpose of this map is to stimulate discussion and appreciation of the history of economic thought in Dublin. Some of the figures, including Edgeworth, Geary, Cairnes and Bastable, made intellectual contributions that are important internationally, and many of the economists featured were key figures in national policy debates.  It is intended as a public discussion tool and not itself as a primary academic source and draws in detail from excellent source material below, in particular the Boylan et al, 2011, Murphy 1984 and Murphy and Prendergast 2000 books that are worth reading for anyone with an interest in Irish history, and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. It is also a work-in-progress and I will update frequently. It is based on a similar project conducted by Professor Ian Preston at University College London. http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctp100/Walks/EconWalks.htm Doireann O’Brien provided detailed assistance with locating sources and developing the map and associated resources. Comments or suggestions can be sent to liam.delaney@ucd.ie

Bibliography

Barrington, Richard. “History of SSISI.” The Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland. Web.

Boland, Rosita. “Sophie Bryant, Mathematician and Pioneer of Education for Women.” The Irish Times. 23 Aug. 2016. Web.

Boylan, Thomas. Political Economy and Colonial Ireland: The Propagation and Ideological Functions of Economic Discourse in the Nineteenth Century. London and New York: Routledge, 1992. Print.

Boylan, Thomas A., Renee Prendergast, and John D. Turner. A History of Irish Economic Thought. London: Routledge, 2011. Print.

“British Academy Scholarship.” British Academy Scholarship. Oxford University Press. Web.

Callinan, Frank. “Thomas Michael Kettle: An Enduring Legacy.” The Irish Times. 16 May 2016. Web.

Cullen, Clara, Mary E. Daly, and Orla Feely. The Building of the State: Science and Engineering with Government on Merrion Street. Dublin: U College Dublin, 2011. Print.

“The Economic and Social Research Institute.” ESRI – The Economic and Social Research Institute. Web.

Fanning, Bryan. Histories of the Irish Future. London: Bloomsbury Academic, an Imprint of Bloomsbury Plc, 2015. Print.

“Faulkner, George.” Dublin Music Trade. Ed. Barra Boydell and Catherine Ferris. The Music Libraries Trust, The Society for Musicology in Ireland. Web. 22 June 2017.

Granville, David. “Sophie Bryant (part 1).” Irish Democrat Archive : Features. Connolly Association, C/o RMT, Unity House, 39 Chalton Street, London, NW1 1JD, 10 Dec. 2008. Web.

Harbison, Peter. “Royal Irish Academy.” The Encyclopedia of Ireland. Ed. Brian Lalor. New Haven: Yale UP, 2003. 948-49. Print.

“Houses of the Oireachtas – Where It Began!” Houses of the Oireachtas. Houses of the Oireachtas. Web.

“Identity Statement for Professor James Meenan.” UCD Archives. Winter 1992. Web.

M, M. J. “Professor Patrick Lynch.” The Irish Times. 3 Dec. 2001. Web.

McCabe, Brian. “Building of the Month – Department of Industry and Commerce.” Archive: Buildings of Ireland: National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Nov. 2012. Web.

Murphy, Antoin E. Economists and the Irish Economy: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present Day. Blackrock: Irish Academic in Association with Hermathena, 1984. Print.

Murphy, Antoin E.; Prendergast, Renee “Contributions to the History of Economic Thought-Essays in Honour of R.D.C. Black”
Taylor and Francis, 2000.

Nolan, Mark C. “Keynes’ View on Self-sufficiency.” The Irish Times. 7 Aug. 2012. Web.

O’Connor, J. J., and E. F. Robertson. “Robert Charles Geary.” MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive. School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, Scotland. Web.

“Online Catalogue.” Library of Congress. Web. 22 June 2017.

“Online Library of Liberty.” Online Library of Liberty. Liberty Fund, 10 Apr. 2014. Web. 22 June 2017.

“Oxford DNB Resources.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. David Cannadine. Oxford University Press, 2014-2017.

Preston, Ian. “Women, Economics and UCL in the Late 19th Century.” Women, Economics and UCL in the Late 19th Century. 20 May 2015. Web.

Scott, William Robert. Francis Hutcheson: His Life, Teaching and Position in the History of Philosophy. Cambridge, 1900. Print.

 

Professor Ian Preston at UCL has produced various resources on the history of Economics in London, including a wonderful map of 16 walking tours. His website contains a lot of information about the development of Economics throughout the centuries and is a terrific resource.

There are quite a few Irish connections, not least JE Cairnes and FY Edgeworth. A particularly interesting connection is the presence of Dublin-born Sophie Bryant in the first class of women to take part in co-educational university education. Sophie Bryant was an interesting person with several achievements and was awarded an honorary doctorate by TCD shortly after they had started to award degrees to women. She was profiled recently by the Irish Times.

Stimulated by Ian’s work, I am putting together a resource for Dublin and will do a walking tour on Sunday July 16th (sign-up page here). Will post further details in the next few weeks. A working version of our Dublin map is available but not ready for public distribution. If there are any particularly eager people who might be willing to look at it and comment, I would welcome emails.