Topic: Property taxes: Why, how, who pays?
When: 4 pm, 11/11/2010
Where: ESRI
Presenters: Tim Callan on this paper, Richard Tol on this paper
Author: Richard Tol
The third edition is here.
The records of more people have been vetted. Junior and administrative staff have been removed. And Cork has been added. The refined ranking is TCD, (QUB, UCD), (NUIG, UU), (UL, NUIM), DCU, UCC, DIT, NCI.
The main conclusions (here and here) still stand.
I also counted publications in top journals (score 4 according to ABS) by people affiliated to Irish universities. Less than 5% of people have published in these journals (while employed in Ireland); and less than 2% of published papers are in these journals. The scores are as follows: UCD (15), UL (7), NUIG & TCD (6), UCC (5), DCU (4), QUB (3), NUIM (1). Four people published three papers in top journals (while affiliated in Ireland): Patrick Gunnigle (24), Tom Turner (32), Rory O’Shea (74), and William Kingston (109). The number in brackets is their rank on life-time achievement (publication, citations, h-index). While some people want to exclude all but the top journals, I really do not understand that.
I’ll write up the paper now. Comments on the data should be made, by email, within the next two weeks.
The results of the review of the ESRI are here.
On PrimeTime last week, Sean Barrett and Edgar Morgenroth cast severe doubt on the wisdom of Metro North. They are now joined by Frank McDonald.
Cairan Cuffe’s response starts with “[n]ow is the time to invest”. That says it all really. You can read the rest for yourself.
The Green Party is apparently still oblivious to the situation with the economy and the public finances. Cuffe wants to invest billions of euros in a project with a doubtful return. Gormley wants to spend unnecessary hundreds of millions of euros on waste disposal, despite warnings of his own EPA. Ryan invests ESB’s money in electric cars and continues a subsidy scheme that does not deliver according to his own SEAI.
It is never wise to waste money, but now is a particularly bad time.
Dublin is badly served by public transport at present. Liberation of the bus market is the way forward.
UPDATE: Metro North got planning.
I decided to give an interim update of the assessment of business schools and scholars on the island of Ireland, because things have changed. Latest results are here.
The records of 18 people have been double-checked and corrected where appropriate. More significantly, I had overlooked a department in Maynooth which has been added. Another department employs two high performers without listing them on their front page.
As a result, the preliminary ranking has changed: TCD, (UCD, QUB), (NUIG, UU, NUIM), (DCU, UL), DIT, NCI. Brackets indicate institutions whose performance is similar.
Note that Cork is still missing.
I’ve added sex and rank where known. The sex results are not good. The rank results are roughly as they should be: professor > reader > senior lecturer > lecturer > junior lecturer.
There are two exceptions, however: Associate professors perform on par with full professors, and post-docs perform on par with lecturers. I would expect there to be progression from the former to the latter.
While looking at the ranks, I came across all sorts of weird stuff. Full professors without a doctorate. Teaching assistants with a doctorate. Lecturers of French (in a business school!). Senior teaching assistants. And one of the department runs a restaurant — ostensibly for experimental purposes.