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DCU School of Law and Government have launched a new MSc in Public Policy:

The global financial crisis has exposed flaws in the policy making system in Ireland and elsewhere. Part of this relates to the technical capacity of policy makers to do effective public policy analysis. This is something recognised by the Irish state and the European Union as well as other international bodies as they attempt to increase the number of professionally qualified policy specialists working for them.

In response DCU is offering a bespoke, interdisciplinary course designed to suit the needs of a new generation of policy makers. It will be hosted in the School of Law and Government, but builds on links across the University and is a key part of a new Institute for Innovative Government (IIG).

This is a new type of professional degree – in many ways a parallel for those in the policy/government sector to an MBA in the commercial sector. It will have an intellectual base and methodological rigour that reflect the needs of a sector facing more nuanced and complex challenges.

The eight annual one day conference on Economics and Psychology will be held on November 27th at the ESRI in Dublin. The purpose of these sessions is to develop the link between Economics, Psychology and cognate disciplines in Ireland. A special theme of these events is the implications of behavioural economics for public policy (see detailed reading list on this area here) though we welcome submissions across all areas of intersection of Economics and Psychology. We welcome submissions from PhD students as well as faculty and also welcome suggestions for sessions on policy and industry relevance of behavioural economics. Abstracts (200-500 words) should be submitted before September 30th to Liam.Delaney@stir.ac.uk. Suggestions or questions please send to Liam.Delaney@stir.ac.uk and/or Pete.Lunn@esri.ie Further details of wider network activities will be added here shortly. Details of the previous seven workshops are available here.

I am surprised this has not received more attention.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-04-21/imf-needs-to-correct-its-big-greek-bailout-mistake

The original sin of Eurozone crisis mismanagement was the May 2010 ‘bail-out’ of Greece. As Karl Otto Pohl noted at the time, the beneficiaries were German banks, even more so French banks (as always, you gotta hand it to the French!), and rich Greeks. Yanis Varoufakis agreed at the time with Pohl, for which he will not be forgiven.

If you subscribe to the view that careless lenders should face haircuts, the official lenders to Greece should take a belated bath.

All of them, including the IMF, which means its shareholders, including us.

The alternative is an international financial order built on a doctrine of official creditor impunity.

The Geary Institute at UCD has initiated a Policy Peer Review Series.  This involves members of the Geary Institute reviewing research/evaluation reports which have significant implications for public policy.  The authors of the evaluations/reports are then invited to reply to the review.  The first two such reviews (and responses) are on (a) an evaluation of the School Support System under DEIS and (b) an evaluation of  FAS training programmes where the participants exited in 2012.  The reviews and responses are available here:

http://www.ucd.ie/geary/publications/policypeerreviews/

here.