The Fiscal Council has an exciting lineup for its fifth annual Path for the Public Finances conference.
This year’s theme is “Ensuring debt sustainability in a post-Covid world”.
The conference will focus on the theme of fiscal policy in the era of high public debt and low interest rates that follows the outbreak of Covid-19.
The conference has two sessions: the first looks at fiscal policy of high debt conditional on current interest rates (debt sustainability analysis; what does it means for the fiscal rules, how should policymakers respond). The second takes a more “big picture” look at the sustainability of low interest rates given high public debt, ageing, financial implications and whether such pressures might influence monetary policy.
The conference takes place over 8th – 9th February 2021 from 2pm – 4pm both afternoons.
Speakers include Olivier Blanchard, Agnès Bénassy-Quéré, Charles Wyplosz, Hélène Rey, Philip Lane, Antonio Fatás and Karolina Ekholm.
Full programme and Registration details are available at the Fiscal Council’s website:
The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) in the Houses of the Oireachtas Service is seeking to recruit AO economists to fill vacancies which exist in the PBO. The positions would suit recent masters graduates or degree graduates with research work experience.
Candidates should acquaint themselves with the essential entry requirements for applying for this position, as described in the information booklet for the competition. Only applications completed via and submitted to Recruitment@oireachtas.ie and submitted on the official application forms will be accepted in this competition. Applications received after the deadline will not be accepted.
The deadline for receipt of applications is 1pm on Wednesday, 24 February 2021.
A guest post by Kenneth Devine (Central Bank of Ireland) on new occupational pension fund data highlighting household exposure, concentrated asset holdings and the impact of COVID-19. [Disclaimer: This blog represents the author’s views and not those of the Central Bank of Ireland]
Pensions are the primary source of income to households in retirement. The volatility and economic shock associated with COVID-19 have compounded pre-existing issues for pension systems. These include aging populations, the low interest rate environment and the prevailing low yields on safe assets (OECD, 2020).
In a recent Behind the Data publication, Ciarán Nevin, David Mulleady and I ask the question – What do we know about occupational pension funds in Ireland? Our note highlights the role of occupational pension funds as a household asset, outlines the breakdown of financial assets, and examines the impact of the pandemic on these holdings. An overview of the key findings can be seen in Figure 1 below.
Figure 1: Overview of key findings
While previous
work by the OECD
(2014) provided a comprehensive review of the Irish pension system, its analysis
of occupational pension funds was constrained by a lack of data. New
Central Bank of Ireland statistics covering occupational pension funds help
to fill this gap by providing a better understanding of the structure and asset
holdings of the sector.
We show that, in
June 2020, Irish occupational pension funds had assets of €118 billion,
accounting for 30 per cent of household financial assets. This is the second
largest household financial asset behind currency and deposits. Household
sector housing assets accounted for €542
billion in the same period.
According to the Pensions
Authority’s 2019 annual report, the Irish sector consists of over 75,000
active occupational pension funds, representing almost half a million active members.
This represents over 90 per cent of total euro area pension funds by number. The
size, and role, of occupational pensions varies across euro area countries (Curos
et al., 2020), with total assets of the pension fund sector amounting to €3
trillion at September 2020.
We have seen a transition away from Defined Benefit (DB) funds in recent years (fall of 50 per cent in number of active schemes since end-2009). For Defined Contribution (DC) pension funds, the member’s income in retirement is dependent on asset performance. Therefore, the switch from DB to DC pension funds has shifted investment risk from the corporate sector to households (Brown, 2016). Households, and their retirement income, are now increasingly exposed to financial market shocks.
The Behind the Data piece outlines that Irish pension funds primarily invest in investment funds shares and unit-linked insurance products. Combined, these two instruments account for three quarters of the sector’s balance sheet. However, structural differences in asset holdings exist across DB/DC pension funds. While the larger DB pension funds are seen to directly invest in hundreds of diverse assets, smaller DC pension funds tend to predominantly hold a limited number of investments.
Figure 2: Impact of COVID-19 on pension fund asset prices
As can be seen in Figure 2, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic the total value of pension fund assets fell by 6.5 percent (€7.9 billion). These asset values largely recovered across Q2 and Q3 2020 to sit at €118 billion. The movements were predominantly caused by financial market price gains and losses as the pandemic, and global policy responses, evolved. At Q3 2020, asset values were 1.8 per cent below pre-pandemic levels.
Going forward, the Central
Bank will publish Pension Fund Statistics information releases on a quarterly
basis. The next steps in developing this dataset will include an investigation
into asset breakdowns by their sector and geography, to further explore
these household
investment exposures.
Researchers interested in hearing
more about the data can contact Kenneth Devine.
The 2020 update of the Annual Debt Report from the Department of Finance is available here.
There are number of takeaways noted by the Department with government indebtedness significantly higher as a result of the pandemic. However, critically the report explores the reasons behind a fall in Ireland’s debt burden.
The under-representation of women in economics is an international issue which is also replicated in Ireland.
The Irish Economic Association (IEA) is currently developing the Irish Society for Women in Economics (ISWE) to help address this issue.
On Friday 19th February from 9-11am we will hold our first ‘planning workshop’. The aim of this workshop is to learn from the experiences of similar initiatives in other countries and to discuss the substantive and organisational development of ISWE.
Anyone who is interested in being involved in ISWE is encouraged to attend. Both male and female economists working in the public or private sector on the island of Ireland are welcome. PhD students are particularly encouraged to attend.
The workshop will have 2 parts:
· First, Dr. Leonora Risse, Chair of the Women in Economics Network (WEN) in Australia, will share her experiences of setting up and developing WEN since 2017 (https://esawen.org.au/).
· Second, workshop participants will be divided into breakout rooms to brainstorm and discuss how best to develop ISWE in Ireland, covering topics such as the purpose of the society, its events and activities, its governance and funding structure.
If you are interested in participating, please register in advance here:
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the workshop.
