Author: Philip Lane

Date: Thursday January 19th 2012
Topic: Economic crisis and the restructuring of wage setting mechanisms for vulnerable workers in Ireland
Speaker: Dr Michelle O’Sullivan, Department of Personnel and Employment Relations, University of Limerick
Venue: INTO Training Centre, 38 Parnell Square, Dublin 1 (map attached)
Time: 4-5:15pm (Tea and coffee from 3:50pm)

To register your interest in attending and for further details please e-mail info@eru.ie

Further seminars are planned for February 22nd and March 14th 2012 with others to follow throughout the year. Details will be circulated in advance of these seminars.

The ERU (Economic Research Unit) is a new research company/think-tank on the Irish Economy established in September 2011 and funded by a number of unions affiliated to the ICTU. It aims ‘to influence policy outcomes that have the greatest effect on the achievement of equity and fairness in the political economy on the Island of Ireland, to the benefit of working people, their families and communities and the enhancement of the quality of life of all people living on the island of Ireland, through the provision of high-quality macro and micro economic research and analyses, awareness raising and capacity building programmes’. The think tank is currently in its set-up phase and a formal launch will occur in March 2012.

For further details contact info@eru.ie

The comments on the RIchard Tol thread refer to migration patterns. The graph below is from the December 2011 IMF report and highlight the growth in the net emigration of “native Irish” up to April 2011.

Jean Pisani-Ferry has written a useful essay.

Summary:

The search for solutions to the euro crisis is based on a partial diagnosis that overemphasises the lack of enforcement of existing fiscal rules. Europe’s leaders should rather address the euro area’s inherent weaknesses revealed by the crisis.

At the core of euro-area vulnerability is an impossible trinity of strict no-monetary financing, bank-sovereign interdependence and no co-responsibility for public debt. This Policy Contribution assesses the corresponding three options for reform: a broader European Central Bank (ECB) mandate, the building of a banking federation, and fiscal union with common bonds. None will be easy.

The least feasible option is a change to the ECB’s mandate; changing market perceptions would require the ECB to credibly commit overwhelming forces, and the ECB is simply not in a position to make such a commitment

The building of a banking federation, meanwhile, involves reforms that are bound to be difficult. Incremental progress is likely, but a breakthrough less so.

This leaves fiscal union. It faces major obstacles, but a decision to move in this direction would signal to the markets and ECB a commitment to stronger Economic and Monetary Union. One possibility would be to introduce a limited, experimental scheme through which trust could be rebuilt.

The WSJ has nice graphics here;  see also its euro blog here.

Another IMF WP – available here.

Summary: This paper presents a range of tools and indicators for analyzing fiscal vulnerabilities and risks for advanced economies. The analysis covers key short-, medium- and long-term dimensions. Short-term pressures are captured by assessing (i) gross funding needs, (ii) market perceptions of default risk, and (iii) stress dependence among sovereigns. Medium- and long-term pressures are summarized by (iv) medium- and long-term budgetary adjustment needs, (v) susceptibility of debt projections to growth and interest rate shocks, and (vi) stochastic risks to medium-term debt dynamics. Aiming to cover a wide range of advanced economies and minimize data lags, has also influenced the selection of empirical methods. Due to these features, they can, for example, help inform the joint IMF-FSB Early Warning Exercise (EWE) on the fiscal dimensions of economic risks.