Author: Philip Lane

Competitiveness Benchmarking Report

The NCC has released its benchmarking report (you can download it here).

The National Competitiveness Council (NCC), which reports to the Taoiseach on key competitiveness issues facing the Irish economy, today published its Annual Competitiveness Report: Volume I, Benchmarking Ireland’s Performance. The report provides an assessment of the competitiveness strengths and weaknesses of the Irish economy relative to competitor countries.

The Irish economy is experiencing a rapid and painful adjustment to the bursting of the property bubble, the international financial crises and the downturn in world trade. As a small, open and competitive economy, Ireland prospered from an export boom driven by globalisation and investment in the 1990s and early 2000s. In recent years, strong growth in the domestic economy, driven by housing and consumption, replaced exports as the key driver of growth. Though economic growth rates remained strong, our international competitiveness weakened as the domestic boom increased the costs of doing business here and as reforms to improve competitiveness were delayed.

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New IMF blog and Potential Output

The IMF has established a new blog: the link is here.  The most recent entry is about the measurement of potential output and the adverse impact of financial crises on the level of potential output – interesting reading.

Ahearne and McCarthy on the Banking Crisis

Today’s Sunday Business Post carries two interesting opinion pieces.  Alan Ahearne writes a defence of the NAMA approach (you can read it here), while Colm McCarthy recommends an inquiry into the banking crisis (you can read it here).  The latter suggestion has been adopted elsewhere (for example, in Iceland).

More views on NAMA

In today’s Sunday Independent, Brendan Keenan writes about the potential payoff from NAMA’s long-term investment horizon (you can read it here), while Jane Suiter writes about the internal tensions among the various policy entities involved in setting up NAMA (you can read it here).

Living with the Euro

Cormac Lucey has a piece in Saturday’s Irish Times on the implications of EMU membership for Irish macroeconomic adjustment: you can read it here.

Clarification:  There is an important typo in Cormac’s article. “In January 2005, Rossa White of Davy Stockbrokers used the Taylor rule to estimate that European Central Bank interest rates were appropriate for Ireland.”  This should read: “In January 2005, Rossa White of Davy Stockbrokers used the Taylor rule to estimate that European Central Bank interest rates were inappropriate for Ireland.”    You can read Rossa’s original note here.