Category: events

How (Not) To Do Public Policy

Conference and launch of new report on water charges and the local property tax

1:30pm, Thursday, 13 September 2018
Aula Maxima, The Quadrangle, NUI Galway

Why do some public policy measures succeed while others fail? Why, for example, has the Local Property Tax been a policy success, while the attempt to introduce water charges was a policy disaster? What can we learn from successful and failed policies about the policy-making process in Ireland and how to make that process more effective?

This conference will gather senior policymakers, public servants, academics, and other experts to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the policy-making process in Ireland with a view to suggesting how the quality of policy-making might be improved. Although much analytical attention has been paid to the effects of public policies in Ireland and to the macroeconomic context in which they are set, there has been very little analysis of the policy-making process: How policies are conceived, designed, implemented, communicated, and reviewed. This conference is an attempt to address this gap. View the conference programme here.

The conference will feature the launch of a new Whitaker Institute report by economist Jim O’Leary on water charges and the local property tax. This report, meticulously researched based on exceptional access to senior policymakers, looks back forensically at these two recent policy initiatives and explores what it was about the policy-making process in each case that contributed to success or failure.

This conference is aimed at a general audience and will appeal to anyone with an interest in how public policy is made in Ireland. The event is free and open to the public, however those who wish to attend must pre-register at: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/how-not-to-do-public-policy-tickets-48552806752

41st DEW Annual Conference – September 14/15, Clayton Whites (Wexford)

The 41st Annual DEW Economic Policy Conference, supported by Dublin Chamber, takes place in Whites of Wexford on Friday 14th and Saturday 15th September, 2018.

The conference opens on Friday afternoon with the Cantillon Lecture delivered by Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe. The two other sessions on Friday deal with the all-island economy, including Aidan Gough (Intertrade Ireland) and Tom Healy (NERI), and “Ten Years Since the Crisis“, where the expert panel includes Sharon Donnery (Central Bank) and Ann Nolan (ex-Department of Finance).

Saturday morning starts with a session on Housing Supply, featuring among others Orla Hegarty (UCD) and Colette Bennett (Social Justice Ireland). Next up is an expert panel on Higher Education, with Michael Horgan (Chair, Higher Education Authority), Brigid McManus (ex-Department of Education) and Linda Doyle (Vice-Dean for Research, Trinity College Dublin).

After lunch, there are parallel sessions on the application of behavioural economics to policy and on public finances. The conference concludes with an expert panel on Ireland 2040, chaired by Robert Watt (Department of Public Expenditure and Reform), and the William Petty lecture, by another government minister.

For more on the conference, including how to book, please visit the DEW’s website: http://dublineconomics.com.

Well it’s raining, again

With flooding back in the news today, I thought I’d take the opportunity to mention that my colleague and co-author Swenja Surminski from LSE will be giving evidence tomorrow morning (Thursday) at the Oireachtas Finance Committee hearings on the Flood Insurance Bill. Details of the session are here. You should be able to watch proceedings online here. The Flood Insurance Bill can be viewed here.

President Higgins on Economic Development

President Higgins delivered a lecture at the University of Melbourne last week. It was well received. Given the content, I thought readers of this blog might like to listen to it. The President also gave a podcast which summarises some of his views on economics here.

Upcoming Conference: Macroeconomic Effects of Policy Announcements, 5 and 6 October

The Central Bank of Ireland is organising a workshop on the effects macroeconomic policy announcements have on agents’ expectations and their actions. The main focus is on the Dynamic, Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) macroeconomic models used for policy analysis. The workshop will take place on 5 and 6 October, 2017 in Dublin.

Expectations of households and firms regarding future monetary and fiscal policies have been at the heart of macroeconomic policy debates at least since the 1970s, most notably in the context of how to limit the costs of disinflations. Since the financial crisis and the European sovereign debt crisis, policymakers aiming to stabilise inflation and economic activity had to rely even more on their ability to influence the expectations of the private sector. As short term interest rates hit the zero lower bound, some central banks aimed to influence long term rates by announcing the future path of the policy rate, and also tried to affect long term rates more directly by means of asset purchases. Similarly, the key rationale behind fiscal policy measures taken during the crisis and the accompanying structural reforms was that their favourable effect on the expectations of households and firms would counterbalance direct contractionary effects. This workshop aims to be a forum for recent contributions analysing the current macroeconomic effects of future policy changes or long term plans.

 The programme can be found here:

 Programme – Macroeconomic Effects of Policy Announcements FINAL.