The Irish Economy

Call for Submissions

The Barrington Medal is awarded annually by the Council of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland under the auspices of the Barrington Trust (founded in 1836 by the bequest of John Barrington). The award, which includes both a silver medal and €1,000, is intended to recognise a promising new researcher in the economic and social sciences in Ireland. This will be the 171st anniversary of the lecture series and the recipient will be the 130th Barrington Lecturer. A list of recipients over the past 35 years is included in the attached call for submissions.

The lecture should be based on a paper of not more than 7,500 words addressing a topic of relevance to economic or social policy and of current interest in Ireland. In treating the issue of economic or social policy, the paper may either report the findings of a statistical research study dealing with some aspect of the problem or deal with the underlying theoretical considerations involved, or preferably combine these two approaches. It should be written in a manner that makes it accessible to non-specialists in the area. More technical material may be included in an appendix. The paper is published in the Journal of the Society, so it should not have been published before (nor should it be published subsequently without the prior consent of the Council of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland).

Candidates, who at the time of their submission must be not more than 35 years of age, should at least submit a detailed abstract of approximately 1,000 words on the proposed lecture, with preference being given to full papers. A short CV and the name of a proposer who is familiar with their work should also be submitted. Entries will be accepted until 31st August, 2019 and should be sent to the Honorary Secretaries of the Society via email, using the email address secretary@ssisi.ie.

This year’s Irish Postgraduate and Early Career Economics Workshop will be hosted by the Discipline of Economics at NUI Galway on Thursday June 6th and Friday June 7th. The event is aimed at PhD students, PostDocs, early career researchers and advanced Masters students based in higher education and research institutions on the island of Ireland. The meeting will feature the work and findings of scholars in economics and related fields and will provide an excellent opportunity to engage with research results and work-in-progress in a welcoming and constructive environment. We encourage those working on economics research to attend.

This year the workshop will include a range of thematic sessions and training events, including full paper thematic sessions with discussants and early-stage/emerging research findings thematic sessions with general open discussion. Both will take place on Friday June 7th, along with a short training session on ‘Publishing your Research in Peer-Reviewed Journals – Tips from Journal Editors’. In addition, a workshop on ‘An Introduction to Machine Learning for Economists’ will take place on the afternoon of Thursday June 6th (see below), followed by a social event that evening. While the abstract submission date has passed, it is still possible to register to attend the workshop and associated training events, which are free. Please do so at https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/irish-postgraduate-and-early-career-economics-ipece-workshop-at-nui-galway-tickets-56359973197 .

Workshop Programme

The programme is available at http://www.nuigalway.ie/media/publicsub-sites/economics/files/other/Draft-Programme.pdf

Workshop Venue

The workshop will take place in the JE Cairnes Building at NUI Galway. Please see Building 22 at https://www.nuigalway.ie/media/buildingsoffice/files/maps/M12122_General_CampusMapWEBpdf220217.pdf. For details about getting to NUI Galway, please visit http://www.nuigalway.ie/about-us/contact-us/how-to-find-us.html. Please note that on campus parking is very limited and we suggest parking off site if travelling by car.

IPECE Training Event – An Introduction to Machine Learning for Economists

This training event will be delivered by Dr. Achim Ahrens from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) on Thursday 6th June from 1pm to 5pm. It will provide an overview of popular Machine Learning techniques and the focus will be on LASSO regression, a regularization and model selection method that can deal with high-dimensional data. It will also discuss how the LASSO and other Machine Learning tools can be useful for economists; in particular, how Machine Learning can improve predictions and facilitate causal inference. The presentation will be followed by a demonstration using the Stata packages LASSOPACK and PDSLASSO. Please visit the Eventbrite link above to register to attend.

Contact
The local organising committee consists of Laura Carter, John Cullinan, Daniel Cassidy, Jason Harold, Dan Kelleher, Doris Laepple, Luke McGrath, Shikha Sharma and Michelle Queally at NUI Galway. Please direct inquiries to IPECE2019@gmail.com.

Support
Generous support from the Irish Economic Association (IEA) and the Discipline of Economics at NUI Galway is gratefully acknowledged.

The Statistical & Social Inquiry Society of Ireland [ssisi.ie]

The Annual General Meeting of 172nd session of the Statistical & Social Inquiry Society of Ireland will take place at 5.30pm, on Thursday, May 23rd, at the Institute of International & European Affairs, 8 North Great George’s Street, Dublin 1. The agenda for the AGM, and related papers, are available from the SSISI website.

The meeting will be followed by the closing presidential address by Professor Frances Ruane, entitled “The Changing Patterns of Production and Consumption of Official Statistics in Ireland, 1989-2019”. Non-members are welcome to attend from 5.30pm and to participate in the discussion of Prof Ruane’s address.

Revenue today published our Annual Report for last year, detailing the activities behind the collection of Exchequer receipts of €54.6 billion in 2018.

https://www.revenue.ie/en/corporate/press-office/press-releases/2019/pr-090519-revenue-publishes-2018-annual-report.aspx

Also published (links at the bottom of the page above) are a series of research papers and notes including our analysis of Corporation Tax payments in 2018 as well as returns for 2017.

The Statistical & Social Inquiry Society of Ireland [ssisi.ie]

invites you to attend its 2019 Symposium on the following topic:

“The Economies on the Island of Ireland“

The Symposium will take place in Dublin on Thursday, April 25th, at 5.30pm, in the Achill Room on the 2nd floor of Chartered Accountants House, Pearse Street, Dublin 2. Non-members are welcome to attend and participate in the discussion.