You can find my views in this article for Business & Finance.
The Irish Economy in 2010
- Post author By Philip Lane
- Post date December 30, 2009
- Categories In Economic Performance
- Tags Irish economy in 2010
- 56 Comments on The Irish Economy in 2010
Hyun Shin of Princeton has been among the most insightful analysts of the global crisis. He now has taken on a new role: helping Korea in its presidency of the G20 during 2010, as chief advisor on international economics to the President of Korea .
You can learn more about his research here.
The announcement of the new position is here.
In a year-end interview with Jody Corcoran in the Sunday Independent, the Taoiseach answered questions about NAMA. The relevant passage is below the fold.
This field of study addresses issues such as the factors militating against the adoption of growth-enhancing policies, even when politicians themselves might favour them, and the various sources of political cover that might be available to help resist such pressures. (Some of the bigger questions can be intuited from the way I’ve phrased these particular ones). A former student of mine emailed me recently to say that she found these topics “ridiculously interesting; it’s almost like reading gossip”. (Thank you, N!) I haven’t yet begun to model these processes (spent the semester boning up on game theory with the intention of doing so) but some of my musings on the topic (in the context of the last 50 years of Irish economic history) are available in this recent paper. I have discussed other examples of available political cover, such as the “golden straightjacket” of EU and WTO rules (to use Thomas Friedman’s phrase from The Lexus and The Olive Tree) , in other recent writings.
he Irish Times has a story reminding us of the runaway success of Dublin Bikes, the bike rental scheme in Dublin city. The question is why is this so popular? It strikes me that Dublin is small enough to cycle but too big too walk, while motorised public transport is inconvenient and taxis too expensive.
Dublin Bikes copies Velo’v in Lyons, which was introduced in May 2005. There is no academic literature on who uses these bikes and why (but there is work on the trips taken). Bike rental is typically presented as a complement to other forms of public transport. A look at the station map suggests that Dublin Bikes are used to get around the city, rather than get into the city. Bike rides would thus replace bus rides and walks. Assuming that Dublin Bus did not respond by changing routes or frequencies, that means that Dublin Bikes does not reduce emissions and increases congestion by putting more bikes on the road.