The Free Exchange blog on the Economist website features some articles on this topic:
Worth a look, Breugel’s assessment of the programmes in Greece and Ireland in particular, and the differential roles and internal tensions played by the individual members of the Troika, particularly the Commission. The large effects these programmes are having on unemployment is a key feature of the report.
Last week, I was one of the speakers at a workshop on the euro crisis at the Federal Reserve: my paper is here.
This week the OECD released an update of their income inequality statistics which was covered in an article by Dan O’Brien in yesterday’s Irish Times. For household disposable income Ireland is not unusually unequal.
Under both measures Ireland is less unequal than the OECD average. Data is for 2010 except for 2009 data from Hungary, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand and Turkey, and 2011 data from Chile.
The OECD dataset also includes a gini-coefficient for direct income (i.e. household income prior to taxes and transfers). Direct income includes employee earnings, employer social insurance contributions, self-employed earnings and other direct income. There is no data for Hungary, Mexico or Turkey. The following chart has the most recent figures (mainly 2010) for this gini coefficient (most equal first).
For the 31 countries shown, Ireland has the highest level of inequality for direct income, and by some distance. The (2009) Irish figure is 0.591 compared to an arithmetic average for the sample of 0.470.
Charts showing the impact each country’s tax and transfer system has on the gini coefficient and the resulting gini coefficients for household disposable income are below the fold.
The conference on bank resolution mechanisms is next Thursday at IFSC, attendance is free but requires enrolment via Irene.ward@ucd.ie. Details of the poster session presentations are also now available and are shown below the main presentations.
Thursday May 23, 2013
Irish Institute of Bankers Conference Hall, International Finance Services Centre
9:15 am – 9:45 am: Registration and Opening Reception with Poster Session
9:45 am – 10:30 am: Ajai Chopra (International Monetary Fund) “A Banking Union for the Euro Area”
10:30 am – 11:15 am: Zhenyu Wang (University of Indiana) “On the Design of Contingent Capital with a Market Trigger”
11:15 am – 11:30 am: Coffee Break
11:30 am – 12:15 pm: Viral Acharya (New York University) “Analyzing the Systemic Risk of the European Banking Sector”
12:15 pm – 1:00 pm: Patrick Honohan (Central Bank of Ireland) “The Shifting Goals of Bank Resolution”
1:00 pm – 1:30 pm: Closing Reception with Poster Session
Presentations at the Poster Session: We encourage comment and discussion with poster presenters at the two poster sessions which open and end the conference. Poster presentations include: