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The Effects of Foreign Aid in Sub-Saharan Africa
Get PDFThis paper contributes to the aid effectiveness debate by applying a vector autoregression model to a panel of Sub-Saharan African countries. This method avoids the need for instrumental variables and allows one to analyse the effect of foreign aid on human development and on economic development simultaneously. The full sample results indicate a small increase in economic growth following a fairly substantial aid shock. The size of the effect puts the result somewhere between the arguments of aid optimists and those of aid pessimists. Human development, for which I use the growth rate of life expectancy as a proxy, responds positively to aid shocks in democracies
Revisions to Macroeconomic Data: Ireland and the OECD
Get PDFThis paper examines revisions to Irish quarterly macroeconomic data focusing on growth rates of real GDP as well as the main expenditure components. A real-time database is constructed from the Central Statistics Office’s Quarterly National Accounts release. This is used to measure the extent of data revisions while also formally testing the presence of statistical bias in Irish data. Although estimates of GDP are found to be unbiased, the same cannot be said for some of the subcomponents, most notably investment spending. Using data from the OECD, we compile an additional data set for 25 OECD economies to assess the relative scale of revisions to Irish data. Finding that revisions to Irish real GDP growth rates are among the largest observed – even when allowing for differences in growth rates – we examine a number of factors that may indicate why cross-country differences emerge. The scale of data revisions, particularly in Ireland, appears to bear some relation to the structure of the traded sector. More generally the paper also highlights the potential for weaker forecasting performances in countries where data revisions are likely to be relatively high
Quantifying the Importance of Nationality in Determining International Protection Outcomes in Ireland
Get PDFWe examine 40,434 International Protection (IP) determinations for non-EEA nationals covering a 16-year period in Ireland. We quantify the weight of importance of nationality versus process factors (e.g. length of time awaiting a decision) and applicant (e.g. gender) related characteristics in determining the IP outcome and show that nationality accounts for over twothirds of the explained variation in outcomes. We also show that a grant of protection of depends on just seven statistically significant applicant characteristics or process factors suggesting the determining officer’s assessment of the credibility of an asylum claim is nuanced. Taken with the fact that the UNHCR provides oversight of the IP determination procedure we take the view that the procedure is reasonably fair. Nonetheless, our analysis also shows that a stiffer determination regime has been in place in Ireland from 2007 to 2013. Our findings have important policy implications for IP in Ireland and elsewhere
Estimating Commodity Substitution Bias in the Irish Inflation Rate Statistics during the Financial Crisis
Get PDFMeasures such as the Consumer Price Index are important economic indicators setting out price changes in the Irish economy over time. Such measures, however, are subject to various types of measurement bias. The latter can include Commodity Substitution Bias whereby the weights assigned to each item in a representative basket of goods and services cease to fully reflect consumer expenditure patterns over time, and particularly during a period of economic upheaval. This, in turn, can lead to the overstatement (or understatement) of inflation. The Central Statistics Office (CSO) now updates the relevant weights every year, thereby reducing the impact of this bias. In this article, we have endeavoured to estimate the size of the bias in the period leading up to the introduction of the new methodology in 2012. The results presented here indicate that the rate of inflation was slightly understated. The degree of this measurement bias was not significantly higher than that identified in other countries in which this phenomenon has been examined, albeit that in the latter countries an upward bias (or overstatement) was found
An Analysis of Tax Forecasting Errors in Ireland
Get PDFThis paper examines the tax revenue forecasting performance of the Department of Finance over the period 1997-2014. While the general forecasting framework used reflects standard international practice, forecasting errors are relatively large by international standards. In almost all cases, we find no evidence of bias in the forecasts when considering the major tax heads over various forecast horizons. A decomposition of the forecast errors reveals substantial contributions from sources other than errors in forecasting the macroeconomic environment or in estimating the previous year’s revenue outturn. This suggests that a formal review of specific procedures and assumptions by the Department could yield further improvements in forecasting performance. An innovative exercise examining the routine use of judgement by the Department to adjust the outcome of forecasting equations indicates that this practice often improved the quality of the forecasts
Introduction
Get PDFThis special issue of the Economic and Social Review draws upon four papers originally presented at the 2015 research conference of the Growing Up in Ireland study (GUI), the longitudinal study of children in Ireland. Although there can be few readers of Economic and Social Review in Ireland who are not aware of GUI, it is still worth providing some detail on the origin and structure of the study as it is the largest social survey ever undertaken in Ireland
Socio-Economic Variation in the Impact of the Irish Recession on the Experience of Economic Stress among Families
Get PDFIn this paper we draw on the Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) data to examine the impact of pre-recession socio-economic characteristics on the economic stress levels of households with children. Our results provide some support for the polarisation argument, with the largest increases in absolute percentage point terms occurring towards the bottom of the socio-economic hierarchy. However, this was accompanied by sharp attenuation of socio economic inequalities in stress and a dramatic increase in the heterogeneity of economically stressed households. The analysis shows that the reality is more complex than either the “class polarisation” or “middle class squeeze” hypotheses would suggest. The results create a new set of challenges for policy that require a careful balancing of issues of legitimacy, the need to meet very broad-based needs for services and the more traditional targeted assistance to vulnerable groups
The economic impact of higher education institutions in Ireland
Get PDFIn the context of Ireland, there is scarce evidence of the economic impact of higher education institutions. Building upon previous research that undertakes such an analysis using input output approaches, this chapter contributes to our knowledge in two aspects. On the one hand, it adopts a Keynesian multiplier approach, and thus enables comparisons between the results of the two methods. On the other hand, this chapter allows a closer examination of the role of higher education institutions at the regional level. In line with the existing evidence, this chapter finds that both Irish universities and institutes of technology are a significant economic force in the economy. Also, it is found that there is a negative relationship between the estimated multipliers and the size of institutions measured as total expenditure
Willingness to Pay For Achieving Good Status Across Rivers in the Republic of Ireland
Get PDFThe Water Framework Directive mandates EU Member States to achieve good status across all surface waters. Derogations from this have to be proven based on infeasibility or disproportionate cost. This study explores public preference for water quality objectives and assesses willingness to pay (WTP) for achieving good status across all rivers in the Republic of Ireland using contingent valuation. Mean WTP for achieving full good status across rivers was estimated at €19 per respondent per annum. WTP was influenced by social class, subjective perceptions relating to household financial status, education, recreational use, environmental values and river basin district