Economic Foundations of Irish Foreign Policy

I was asked to write this chapter for a forthcoming RIA volume on Irish foreign policy. A summary:

A country’s foreign policy is largely driven by what it perceives to be in its economic interests. That this does not provide a complete picture is evidenced by the fact that Irish development assistance has never taken the form of tied aid. Nor can the influence of powerful vested interests be discounted. A case can be made that Ireland turned protectionist again once membership of the European Union had been achieved. Agricultural and sheltered-sector interests have sought to stymie the liberalisation efforts of the WTO and the European Commission respectively. A further complicating factor is that a society’s own economic interests can occasionally be miscalculated. Joseph Lee has noted that “while the ‘political’ skills of Irish representatives in negotiating positions are widely acknowledged… there seems to be no comparable criterion for assessing the calibre of conceptualisation of the Irish case.” Irish foreign policy through the years has nevertheless recorded many successes in defending the economic interests of the citizens of the state.

The paper considers the political and economic determinants of Irish trade policy, the evolution of its inward foreign direct investment strategy, and the country’s position on international migration and on the broadening and deepening of European integration. A separate case study focuses on how successive governments have sought to defend and exploit the advantages of Ireland’s low corporation-tax regime in international negotiations.

IFAC: Fiscal Assessment Report

The first report from the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council is available here.

Mortgage Arrears Report

The report is now published and is available here.

Fintan O’Toole on Public Sector Pay

Fintan O’Toole highlights the data provided by the OECD Government at a Glance 2011 report in looking at comparisons in public sector pay rates across countries.   As he emphasises, these data adjust for differences in purchasing power across countries.  This is relevant if the goal is to establish the relative living standards of workers in different countries, which in turn is relevant in the recruitment of internationally-mobile workers.

However, it is also relevant to compare pay levels between public and private sectors within a country (adjusting for occupational and skill characteristics etc), since public and private sector workers face a common domestic cost of living and, over some time horizon, the relevant choice for many individuals is whether to work in the public sector or private sector.  This is why rigorous analysis of comparative pay trends across public and private sectors is important in determining whether public sector pay levels are at an appropriate level.  An up-to-date study along these lines would be helpful.

Finally, Fintan O’Toole postulates that the cuts in public sector pay since 2008 mean that PPP-adjusted pay levels for public sector workers have likely declined in Ireland relative to other countries since then. While nominal pay reductions have been substantial, it is also the case that the price level in Ireland has declined relative to many other countries since 2008 so that the decline in PPP-adjusted pay levels is much smaller. For example, the ratio of the Irish price level relative to the average price level for the euro area was 1.17 in 2008 and 1.07 in 2010.

Surviving the crisis: Foreign multinationals vs domestic firms

Olivier Godart, Holger Görg and Aoife Hanley write on the Irish experience in this paper.

Abstract: Starting from the observation that all firms in Ireland (foreign and domestic in manufacturing and services industries) were hit by the crisis, the paper asks whether there is a difference in the behaviour of foreign and domestic firms. One hypothesis is that foreign multinationals are less linked into the Irish economy, so more likely to leave once the economy is hit by a negative shock. The paper discusses background hypotheses before giving empirical evidence from firstly aggregate data, and secondly firm-level observations. The analysis of the latter suggests that foreign firms are not more likely to leave during the crisis than Irish firms. Some policy conclusions are offered in the paper.