The CAO deadline is approaching here in Ireland. Click here for an entertaining analysis of the returns to a college education in the United States (double click the graphic to enlarge it). Another example of the power of graphical representation.
Category: Economics
Administrative Data Seminar – 22nd February 2010
– An added dimension to Official Statistics
Seminar Programme is now available.
Venue: Dublin Castle, Erin Room, Dublin 2
Time: 13.30
Date: February 22, 2010
To Register: Email: corporate.support@cso.ie
or
Contact: Sabrina Bowen @ 021-453 5495
The Central Statistics Office has for many years now been using administrative data to broaden the range, scope and depth of analysis that it can provide to support evidence based policy making. The seminar will highlight some of the achievements to date in this domain and hopefully provide a focus for further developments. The recently published NSB strategy highlighted the need to focus on the development of administrative data holdings and to accelerate the development of a coherent “whole-system” approach to official statistics that links CSO generated statistics with administrative data holdings.
The broad objectives of the seminar are
- To promote enhanced engagement from stakeholders in the Irish Statistical System by providing concrete examples of the benefits that exploitation of administrative data and matching/linking of sources can provide;
- To inform stakeholders of current activities and the potential benefits to them (e.g. greater range of statistics, more in-depth analysis, reduced respondent burden, more timely statistics ) from these activities;
- To highlight what can be achieved when the necessary statistical infrastructure (unique identifiers, postal codes etc.) is in place right across the system.
Jeffrey Sachs has an interesting new essay on the priorities for macroeconomic research: you can read it here (requires registration but it is free).
With three colleagues Seán Diffney, Seán Lyons and Laura Malaguzzi Valeri, we have recently published a series of papers on the economics of the electricity industry in Ireland. The conclusions are summarised in a Research Bulletin published today. There is also an article in today’s Irish Times.
The original papers are:
DIFFNEY, S., J. FITZ GERALD, S. LYONS and L. MALAGUZZI VALERI, 2009. “Investment in Electricity Infrastructure in a Small Isolated Market: the Case of Ireland,” Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 469-487. Available here. We will release a working paper with additional results on this topic in the next few days.
MALAGUZZI VALERI, L., 2009. “Welfare and Competition Effects of Electricity Interconnection Between Great Britain and Ireland”, Energy Policy, Vol. 37, pp. 4679-4688. available here. An earlier version is available as a working paper.