Author: Stephen Kinsella

Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Limerick.

IMF: “Nothing to see here, keep moving”

The European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund have passed Ireland with flying colours in their latest quarterly review. I’ll post audio of their press conference when it’s available (commenters please drop the link if you see it). The IMF press release is here.

The statement reads that bank reforms are on track, fiscal consolidation is on track, structural reforms are to come, and it’s all good. Lots of touchy-feely language. Those pesky bond markets, and the burning of senior bondholders, weren’t looked too kindly upon in questions, but overall the message seemed to be: Nothing to see here, nothing at all, no to burning senior bondholders, but guess what lads, the next review will be tougher. Stick with the programme.

On twitter, NamaWinelake reported a divergence between the EU and IMF, with Ajay Chopra of the IMF saying he expected to see a more robust approach to burden sharing, while the ECB representative said no, that wouldn’t be happening.  Although much can be made of comments like this, the review exercise seems to be, on balance, a qualified success. The government did meet its agreed targets. Whether the exercise enhances our credibility to the point that Ireland can wean itself off EU and IMF funds without a second loan package is another question entirely.

Ireland’s credit rating downgraded to junk

Reuters reports that, because Ireland will likely need more financing, it is downgrading Ireland’s credit status to Ba1–of questionable credit quality. The expectation is that there are further falls to come as the prospect of burden sharing, refinancing, or some other combination of unpleasant events, looks increasingly likely. RTE report that the Department of Finance think this is a ‘disappointing development’. Me too.

I’m interested in commenters’ reactions to this news. Does it matter? Is it a sign of things to come?

Colm was right when he said we should fasten our seatbelts.

Five Go Mad on Fiscal Rules.

We have a new fiscal council. Congratulations to the five appointees, they’ve got a lot of work to do. Which of course begs the question–what should they be doing?

Continue reading “Five Go Mad on Fiscal Rules.”

Ranking of Irish Universities (and Economics Departments)

Rankings are funny things. Economists love them. There are rankings by department, by citation, and by subdiscipline. My favourite one is the top dead economist. You’d think it would be Adam Smith, but no.

Some people even rank their rankings.

There are even rankings of business schools, academics, and celebrity economists in Ireland, thanks to Richard Tol and colleagues. The rankings aren’t without controversy. In particular, some see ranking as academic bureaucracy and nothing more, others (like frequent IrishEconomy poster Ernie Ball) point to the perverse incentives such rankings produce in academic life, as well as other serious issues. Ferdinand Von Prondzynski summarises the arguments well here. Here is another particularly harsh assessment of these rankings.

Today’s university rankings show two Irish universities and economics departments in a particularly good light. TCD and UCD come out really well in several areas. Other universities, including mine, don’t feature as prominently at all. Brian Lucey has done the spade work on his blog going through the report, and I reproduce his summary below the fold. Some remarkable findings in there–TCD mathematics is 15th in the world, TCD psychology is top 50, for example–as well as the news that UCD and TCD economics departments are both in the top 50 100 (ht Enda H). Well done to them.

I’m particularly interested in commenters’ reactions to this latest report, and what it might mean for universities in Ireland that a. don’t make the cut in terms of rankings, and b. those that do. Rather than rehashing the tired “rankings-good/rankings-bad” argument, let’s focus, if we can, on what these rankings imply for the funding each university receives by subject area, in the light of the Hunt Report and it’s eventual implementation.  Should resources flow disproportionately to the ‘winners’–TCD and UCD–or alternatively to other universities to bring up capacity? Should all universities do everything, or should there be partitions by subject area? Should UCD’s mathematics department, to pick an example at random, give up and go home, given than TCD’s is so obviously world class? Take a look at the summary below to begin.

Continue reading “Ranking of Irish Universities (and Economics Departments)”

Preliminary Census Results Analysed

Three related posts readers of this blog should be interested in.

First, IrelandafterNama show and describe the geographic variation we see within the preliminary Census results (which are here; initial comments on this blog with hat-tipping to JtO here).

Second, the ever-excellent NAMAWineLake gets sociological on us in a fascinating post on growth of household sizes and why we need an extra 17,000 houses a year.

Third, Seamus Coffey thinks about what an extra 100,000 people means for our economic indicators.