Alanna Gallagher has a piece on the impact of the Luas on house prices in today’s Times. It’s a mix of facts and anecdotes that reminds us of some of the positive effects of proper public transport in a city. At the same time, the fact that people are willing to pay a hefty premium for being near a Luas station reflects badly on transport options in the rest of Dublin.
Author: Richard Tol
THE and QS are now divorced, so more rankings for all.
The Times Higher Education ranking is out too (the number in brackets is QS):
TCD: 72 (52)
UCD: 94 (114)
Cork: >199 (184)
Numbers 200-399 can only be had with an iPhone.
The THE ranking is of course far superior than the QS ranking because the Vrije U Amsterdam does much better according to THE (139 v 171) and ranks higher than U Amsterdam.
The EPA has released a new report on landfill, showing that environmental and nuisance management is much, much better than it used to be. It also contains an action plan to further improve things.
In an interview with the Irish Times, Dara Lynott adds that Ireland is likely to meet its landfill target for 2010 (I disagree) but not after that (I agree) as too little effort is made to provide alternatives to landfill.
CT&T, a specialist manufacture of all-electric vehicles with big ambitions, has decided to put its European headquarters in … Amsterdam.
Apparently, they plan to build 20,000 vehicles next year and 60,000 in 2013. Wikipedia has nice pictures. Would you pay €15,000 for that?
We need to cut costs and increase productivity to pay the mounting debt. It is disconcerting that Ireland dropped from being the 22nd most competitive economy in 2009 to the 29th in 2010, according to the World Economic Forum.
People pay attention to the overall indicator and rank, but the subindicators tell the real story. There are no surprises, really, but it is a sobering read.
Here are some the negative trends:
*Public trust of politicians: 37 to 65
— higher numbers are worse, as countries are ranked from 1 to 139
*Wastefulness of government spending: 45 to 93
*Burden of government regulation: 61 to 87
*Efficiency of legal framework: 22 to 27
*Government deficit: 55 to 130
*Savings rate: 75 to 119
*Government debt: 51 to 112
*Intensity of local competition: 39 to 51
*Time required to start a business: 24 to 45
*Brain drain: 10 to 19
*Financing through local equity market: 51 to 105
*Ease of access to loans: 19 to 117
*Soundness of banks: 9 to 139 (bottom of the pile)
*Regulation of security exchanges: 16 to 90
*Capacity for innovation: 26 to 31
*Government procurement of advanced tech: 43 to 75
There are positive trends too:
*Quality of infrastructure (6 indices, all up)
*Inflation: 48 to 3
*Interest rate: 63 to 11 (I guess the data are older than a few weeks)
*Pay and productivity: 76 to 56
Ireland is still the best place in the world if you worry about malaria. The judiciary is still strong. And foreign investors are still treated well.