The three major reports have tons of interesting material
Category: Uncategorized
This year’s IEA will take place on May 8th and 9th in the CastleTroy Park Hotel, Limerick. The ESR Lecture will be given by Prof. Rachel Griffith, while Prof. Jordi Gali will give the Edgeworth Lecture. The conference is full of strong papers from a diverse set of scholars.
Registration for the conference is through the exordo site. Early registration costs 95 euros and includes dinner on the 8th. There is a much lower price for student delegates at 25 euros.
Bookings for accommodation should be made directly through the CastleTroy Park Hotel, quoting “IEA2014” for a discounted room price.
I’m looking forward to seeing you there in a few weeks.
Central Bank conference details here.
I am a few days late on this but the government White paper on Universal Health Insurance is an important document and worth a thread here. The Irish Times have a summary here.
Addendum:
Some links that might be helpful
The White Paper itself:
http://health.gov.ie/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/White-Paper-Final-version-1-April-2014.pdf
Newspaper articles:
Here is a basic article from the Irish Times giving the details of the white paper:
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/universal-health-insurance-what-is-it-all-about-1.1747201
Column by Muiris Houston arguing that it will never be implemented:
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/six-reasons-why-the-universal-health-care-plan-is-likely-to-fail-1.1749314
Piece by Billy Kelleher on the cost of universal health insurance:
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/universal-health-insurance-will-drive-up-costs-for-many-1.1702639
Irish Independent article on opposition to the proposal:
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/health/opposition-grows-to-plan-for-universal-healthcare-30161443.html
Paul Cullen in the Irish Times: Dutch health insurance costing 23.5% of income
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/dutch-health-insurance-costing-23-5-of-income-1.1752380
Universal Healthcare: Trick or Treat? (www.irishhealth.com) by Catherine Wilkinson and Declan Brennan:
http://www.irishhealth.com/article.html?id=19208
Article from http://www.thejournal.ie where GPs argue that they were not adequately consulted:
http://www.thejournal.ie/gps-say-they-were-not-adequately-consulted-universal-health-insurance-paper-1394547-Apr2014/
Fianna Fáil opposition:
http://www.thejournal.ie/micheal-martin-fianna-fail-ard-fheis-speech-1376437-Mar2014/
Article from http://www.thejournal.ie on opposition from health workers:
http://www.thejournal.ie/uhi-impact-groups-gps-1395368-Apr2014/
Journal articles:
Briggs, A. (2013). How changes to Irish healthcare financing are affecting universal health coverage. Health Policy, Volume 113, Issue 1 , Pages 45-49.
http://www.healthpolicyjrnl.com/article/S0168-8510(13)00211-X/abstract
McKee et al (2013). Universal Health Coverage: A Quest for All Countries But under Threat in Some.Value in Health (Elsevier Science). Supplement, Vol. 16 Issue s1, pS39-S45.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1098301512041526
The Irish Central Bank is forecasting strong growth in Ireland of about 2% in GDP in the latest quarterly bulletin (.pdf). Pages 20 and 21 should interest readers of this blog. Thomas Conefrey and Suzanne Linehan dig into the employment growth numbers in a useful box-out. As usual the report is a chart fest, which is great for the wonky folk who frequent this site, but this one caught my eye. In the figure below you’re looking at household debt relative to disposable income, but also relative to total assets in the household sector.
What is remarkable is the scale of the problem relative to other developed countries. Irish debt to disposable income is about 196%, UK debt to disposable income is about 140%, US is about 120%. Here’s a really useful paper (.pdf) by Clare Lebartz looking at the distribution of household debt by income distribution which goes into the mechanics of this buildup a bit more.
The other sharp change is the brown line, driven by an increase in household assets mainly.