Central Bank event: Labour Markets over the Business Cycle

The Central Bank is hosting a one-day conference on “Labour Markets over the Business Cycle” on 11 December in Dame Street (programme below). There is a limited number of places still available. If you wish to attend, please email ieaadmin@centralbank.ie by 9 December. Please note that places will be allocated strictly on a first-come-first-served basis.

Labour Market Adjustment over the Business Cycle

A one-day conference at the Central Bank of Ireland

11 December 2014
Liffey room, Dame Street, Dublin 2

email ieaadmin@centralbank.ie to confirm attendance by 9 December

   
Programme

 

11 December  
   
08:45 Registration and coffee
09:00 Opening remarks – “Prospects and Challenges for the Irish Labour Market 2015 – 2020”. John Flynn (Head of Irish Economic Analysis Division, Central Bank of Ireland).
   
Session 1 

09:20-11:00

Cycles in employment, unemployment and wages
  Labour market transitions in Ireland – Thomas Conefrey (Irish Fiscal Advisory Council)
  Wage Cyclicality – Mario Izquierdo (Banco de Espana)

 

11:00 Coffee & tea break
   
Session 2
11:15-13:00
Labour market attachment
  Are the marginally attached unemployed or inactive? – Martina Lawless (CBI/ESRI)
  Sources of wage losses of displaced workers – Pedro Portugal (Banco de Portugal)
   
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch
   
Session 3
14:00 – 15:45
Wage flexibility
  Wage flexibility in Ireland – Olive Sweetman (Maynooth University)
  Wage Setting – Flexibility and Rigidity in the UK since 1975 – Jennifer Smith (University of Warwick)

 

Session 4

15:45

Labour market adjustment during and after the crisis: the role of policies and institutions
  Pedro Martins (Queen Mary University of London)
  Questions & discussion

 

  Closing remarks

Conference Ends

Economics and Psychology One-Day Conference

The importance of integrating both psychology and economic history into economics and economic policy has been borne out in recent years (see my Kenmare talk for brief overview of some recent developments in behavioral economics). For the last five years or so, we have been holding some events to develop research at the intersection of economics and psychology in Ireland. The speakers are a mix of PhD students, researchers in public institutions and academics. This year’s main session take place at the Geary Institute on Friday November 25th. All are welcome. Please RSVP to geary@ucd.ie There will be a special issue of the ESR based on some of the papers from this year’s session. The panel session will be used to discuss how developments in the recent literature have policy relevance. There is no registration charge.

Programme:

9.00: REGISTRATION


9.15: Organ Donation and Individual Consent- The role of Family Consent in Donation Systems.
Clare Delargy- UCD Geary Institute

9.45: Credit Cards: Friend or Foe.
Yvonne McCarthy – Central Bank of Ireland.

10.15: Understanding Taxpayer Behaviour – New Opportunities for Tax Administration.
Keith Walsh- Revenue Commissioners

10.45: BREAK

11.00: Deity and Development: A Study of the Impact of Religious Culture upon Social and Economic Development.
Ryan McKee- Queen’s University Belfast

11.30: The Role of Economic Psychology in Students’ Term-Time Employment and Academic Achievement.
Martin Ryan- UCD Geary Institute

12.00: LUNCH

13.00: Corruption and Well-Being
Rob Gillanders – University College Dublin

13.30: Subcultures in Household Financial Decision-Making: An Exploratory Study of Risky Asset Ownership in the Netherlands.
Michael Dowling- DCU

14.00:BREAK

14.15: Behavioural Economics and participation in recycling programmes
Marie Brugligio- University of Malta

14.45: Behavioural Economics and Policymaking: Learning from the Early Adopters.
Pete Lunn, ESRI

15.15: BREAK

15.30: Behavioural Economics and the Irish Pension System
Liam Delaney- Stirling University and Geary Institute

16.00: Is the health impact of socioeconomic status explained by objective financial resources or subjective social status?
Michael Daly – Manchester and Aberdeen.

16.30: Panel Discussion

Irish Society of New Economists Conference

This year’s conference is organised by UCD PhD students Alan Fernihough, Mark McGovern, Svetlana Batrakova and Rob Gillanders and will take place in UCD on Thursday 18th and Friday 19th August. Deadline for abstracts is May 30th. There will be keynotes by Professors Morgan Kelly (UCD) and Peter Neary (Oxford). Further details are available on the website (www.isne2011.com), or from the organisers. Last year’s session in TCD featured 28 sessions with over 100 speakers from 66 departments in 20 countries. There is no registration charge and unfortunately no funds for assistance with travel and accommodation.

Economics and Psychology Event November 6th

On November 6th, we will hold a one-day session on the interaction of Economics and Psychology. Full details of this are here. All are welcome. There is no registration process but perhaps email emma.barron@ucd.ie to confirm attendance.

The current literatures in areas such as intertemporal choice, well-being, emotional decision making, experimental economics, identity, risky choice, neuroeconomics, and related areas are changing modern economics entirely and increasingly behavioural economics is being debated in core policy discussions, particularly in areas such as taxation and pensions. This session and previous sessions have attempted to gather people working in this area in Ireland and are complementary to the wider international conference on economics and psychology that takes place every year.

Speakers for the day include Professor Arie Kapteyn, who is a pioneer in the use of subjective measures in economics and, among many other things in a very distinguished career, founded CentER in Tilburg and is currently head of the Labour and Population Division at RAND. The current head of CentER, Professor Marcel Das will also present on the MESS and LISS projects, two of the largest social science projects in the world that are bringing economics and psychology together in a way that is dramatically expanding the data and measures available for researchers to look at complex economic questions.

There will also be a number of speakers from UCD, ESRI, Maynooth, UL and from other national institutions. While the day is focused around the talks, we hope that there will be a lot of discussion about the implications of behavioural economics for public policy and for regulation. I have posted previously on the topic of whether policy-makers should care about behavioural economics. Hopefully we can talk further about that on the day.

Some of the speakers may be wondering why there are 60,000 people outside the venue protesting. I have told them that behavioural economics is controversial in Ireland and to expect trouble.