Central Bank Letter:
Mortgage Repayments after Permanent Modification – Anne McGuinness
Economic Letter – Vol 2014, No. 7
ESRI new releases:
This Saturday marks the seventh anniversary of the international financial crisis (see, for example, the ECB’s crisis timeline here), at least in terms of the initiation of crisis management policy initiatives (the ECB liquidity injections of 9th August 2007).
From Barry Cannon and Mary Murphy, this article examines an important question I’m sure many people have wondered about–given the scale of the macroeconomic downturn, especially in 2008 and 2009, why were there not more mass protests in the Irish case?
The article, published in Irish Political Studies is free for the moment. The abstract is below, and it seems the authors conclude we just didn’t have enough of a crisis to warrant mass demonstrations.
Update: Thanks to Michael Hennigan here is a slide deck of the paper (.pdf)
Since 2008, Ireland has experienced a profound multi-faceted crisis, stemming from the collapse of the financial and property sectors. Despite enduring six years of neoliberal austerity measures in response to this situation, popular protest has been muted. Using Silva’s [(2009) Challenging Neoliberalism in Latin America (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press)] framework of analysis of popular responses in Latin America to that region’s debt crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, this article seeks to investigate why this has been the case. We assess how the crisis is being framed among popular and civil society groups, and whether increased associational and collective power is developing. In doing so, we look at processes of intra-group cooperation, cross-group cooperation and framing and brokerage mechanisms. We then ask, where such processes exist, if they can lead to a comprehensive challenge to the neoliberal policies currently being implemented, as happened in much of Latin America. We conclude that the crisis has not yet reached sufficient depth or longevity to foster a more robust popular response, but propose that analysis of similar processes in Latin America can help us understand better why this is the case, not just in Ireland, but in other countries of Europe experiencing similar situations.
John FitzGerald’s ESRI piece has added to the debate on income inequality in the Irish context, with some reaction from TASC’s Cormac Staunton, the Irish Times’ Chris Johns, and some other guy giving the flavour of the exchanges from right and left.
Edit: I think David’s forthcoming ESR piece (.pdf) is a real contribution to the debate and should be noted up here, too.
This WSJ article explains why UK can be more attractive than Ireland as an inversion location.