FT Alphaville carries some material on unrecorded outflows from crisis-hit countries here and here.
Today’s CSO release for Ireland shows little progress in recovering/identifying the cumulative €20 billion (approximately) in “net errors and omissions” (a proxy for unrecorded financial outflows) during 2010-2011.
The CSO have published the Q4 2014 Quarterly National Accounts which provide us with the first full-year estimates for 2014.
Real GDP growth in 2014 is estimated to have been 4.8 per cent. Real GNP expanded by 5.2 per cent.
Nominal GDP grew by 6.1 per cent and now stands at €185 billion. Real GDP growth was 0.2 per cent in Q4 2014 compared to previous quarter. The Balance of Payments shows a current account surplus equivalent to 6.2 per cent of GDP (€11.5 billion) for 2014.
As per usual there is likely a lot happening under the surface of the headline figures with factors like contract manufacturing and re-domiciling PLCs impacting previous figures.
Prices rose 0.6 per cent in February but annual inflation remained negative at –0.4 per cent.
The risks of financial institutions (banks, insurance firms) holding excessive amounts of sovereign debt are analysed in this new report, along with an array of policy options: here.
UCC’s Eoin O’Leary has just published his monograph “Irish Economic Development: High-Performing EU State or Serial Under-achiever?” From the publisher’s site:
This book offers a discerning narrative on the spectacular rise and fall of the so-called Celtic Tiger economy. It depicts Ireland as a micro-state with a unique reliance on foreign-assisted businesses, driven in part by a favourable taxation regime. It shows that rent-seeking by trades unions and property developers contributed to the fall since 2002. Although the country’s highly centralized government’s pre-disposition to lobbying has yielded international successes, it has also resulted in recurring self-inflicted crises since 1970.
This volume shows how Ireland’s export-led growth is associated more with the attraction of foreign-assisted businesses than with the development of critical masses of internationally competitive indigenous businesses. Although the success of foreign-assisted businesses in the pharmaceutical, ICT and finance sectors has been influenced by tax advantages, many of these businesses have been involved in highly productive activity in Ireland over a number of decades. The problem of rent-seeking is shown to have undermined Irish competitiveness in the internationally traded and sheltered sectors. The Irish policy mind-set is shown to lean towards distribution rather than growth. While this has been advantageous for how ‘Ireland Inc.’ interacts with other governments and international businesses, it has also resulted in a failure to resist the destructive effects of capture by lobbies.
In conclusion, this book considers future opportunities offered by the EU’s smart-specialization policy and future threats from increased international tax competition. It argues that unless Irish citizens and policymakers change deep-seated attitudes and mind-sets towards business development, the country’s performance for the next number of decades will more likely resemble serial under-achievement than that of a high-performing EU state.
Details are here: http://www.tandf.net/books/details/9780415645126/