Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Limerick.
The Annual RSA conference is on in Trinity College, Dublin this year from the 4th to the 7th of June. The programme looks fascinating. Harvard’s Ricardo Hausmann is among the keynote speakers.
Given the extended discussions being had across Ireland on housing policy, on spatial modeling and on ‘balanced regional development’, it promises to be a good conference.
Trinity are advertising an Assistant Professorship in Economics with a focus on international macroeconomics, though all fields are welcome to apply. The job ad is here.
Two interesting think pieces in the Irish Times today. One by TCD’s Brian Lucey on the challenges and opportunities facing Ireland’s Higher Education sector after Brexit, and another by UCC’s Phillip O’Kane on creating a single International University of Ireland made of the best bits of the higher education landscape.
The Deparment of Finance and the ESRI have a briefing paper modeling the impact of Brexit on the Irish economy. Their takeaway:
the level of Irish output is permanently below what it otherwise would have been in the absence of BREXIT.
‘Nuff said.
The world is awash with populists. From Ireland’s independents to President Duterte of the Philippines, from Germany’s anti-immigrant AfD party to Norbert Hofer of the far-right Freedom Party of Austria, from Ukip and Jeremy Corbyn in Britain to Donald Trump in the US, populists are on the rise. And we’re not talking just a few random demagogues here, though personality does go a long way. (Trump-related Pulp Fiction pun intended, by the way.)
We are seeing a rise in populist parties getting and holding onto power in several European countries including Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Ireland and Switzerland. Iceland is about to elect the Pirate Party (no really) to power. The French Front National may well take power in France, riding a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment there.
Populists come from both sides of the political spectrum: Greece’s Syriza party and Spain’s Podemos party consider themselves of the left, while Germany’s AfD and France’s Front National are on the far right.
So it’s a problem. Old, established, centrist parties have lost their grip on power – spectacularly so in Greece – while newer parties are standing mostly on a basis of what they are not – Corbyn is not a Blairite, Marine Le Pen is not Nicolas Sarkozy, and so forth. The 32nd Dáil contains 19 TDs who are nominally ‘independent’, with 12 more in left or far-left groupings. Ireland does not produce far-right TDs that often, though it does produce some very right-wing policies from time to time.
The Kilkenomics festival programme is live here. Speakers include Dan Ariely, Mark Blyth, Diane Coyle, Bill Emmott, Tim Harford, Wolfgang Munchau, Stephanie Kelton, Deirdre McCloskey, Martin Sandbu, Kimberly Scarf, Nassim Taleb and Linda Yueh. Quite a number of this blog’s contributors will be there over the weekend. I know I’m looking forward to it.