As far as I know, there has not been a single blog relating to Northern Ireland since The Irish Economy blog began earlier this year. Northern Ireland is having a relatively good recession for various reasons on which I do not wish to dwell. However, it has serious long-term problems which have been addressed in a report commissioned by the devolved economy Minister. The report is available here. What will interest readers of this Blog was that 4 out of the 5 report authors are economists, of which I am one.
In essence, the Northern Ireland economy has operated under wartime conditions for nearly four decades. Public sector output amounts to around 60% of gross value added (the regional equivalent of GDP). More specifically, industrial policy has consisted of providing large scale grants to both inward investors and indigenous firms. This has been partly successful: employment growth has been high in the last decade and at the peak of the recent boom, the unemployment rate was hovering just above 4% as in the Republic of Ireland case. What was different was that productivity growth was low to non-existent. Consequently living standards have not converged on the UK and have diverged markedly from the Republic of Ireland and other successful countries.