Open Journal Systems Trinity College Dublin
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Output Gap Estimation Uncertainty: Extracting the TFP Cycle Using an Aggregated PMI Series
Get PDFThe concepts of potential growth and the output gap are important components in assessing the business cycle and productive capacity of an economy. However, being unobservable, these measures must be estimated. The Fiscal Compact will result in these concepts being used to judge EU Member States adherence to budgetary rules. Therefore, it is vital that the methods applied for their estimation are as accurate as possible. A bivariate Kalman Filter (KF) model using capacity utilisation (CU) as the second series has been proven to produce more reliable estimates of the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) cycle than the Hodrick Prescott (HP) filter methodology formerly used for this task. However, CU data is no longer collected in Ireland. Given the large turning point in the TFP series as a result of the financial crisis, this may no longer be the first-best approach for future TFP cycle estimation. This paper compares the existing method to an approach which uses an aggregated Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) series as the second series in the bivariate KF model. This approach has the advantage that PMI data is collected on an on-going basis. The results show that PMI shares a common cycle with TFP, and that this new approach leads to a reduction in the total estimation error variance and revisions required to TFP cycle estimates
Labour Market Regulation and Migration in Ireland
Get PDFWe demonstrate that a disproportionately large fraction of migrants in Ireland enter sectors with regulated wages and working conditions. There is a substantial wage penalty associated with being a migrant that varies across migrant groups but disappears within regulated sectors
Growth and Adjustment Challenges for the Euro Area
Get PDFThis paper reviews the growth record of the member countries of the euro area and assesses the outlook for future economic performance. We describe how the external and fiscal adjustment challenges facing the euro periphery amplify the growth risks facing these countries. We address how growth prospects can be improved by shifts in the macroeconomic policy mix, carefully-timed structural reforms, debt restructuring and the resolution of the existential crisis facing the euro area
Where Do They Stand? Deviant Art Institutions and the Liberal Democratic State
Get PDFThis paper analyses a case study of the public seminar, What Do You Stand For: Who’s Afraid of Solidarity?, held at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin in 2012, in order to unpick the relationship between visual art institutions and left-wing political ideologies.
This paper takes the public seminar, What Do You Stand For: Who’s Afraid of Solidarity?, held at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin in 2012, as a case study for an analysis of the relationship between visual art institutions and left-wing political ideologies. It seeks to contextualise the oppositional practices of its four panellists: Valerie Connor (representing Blue Funk), Mark Garry, Garrett Phelan, and Sarah Pierce, in relation to how they align their practices with the liberal democratic state and the art institutions it funds. The relationship of the state to the politics of resistance that operates against it is the starting point for this analysis. This framework is then mapped onto the art institutional landscape and onto the activities of the panellists. The question then becomes: where do these deviant institutions stand in relation to the state-funded established art institution
Skills, Job Control and the Quality of Work: The Evidence from Britain (Geary Lecture 2012)
Get PDFIn the last decade and a half there has been a marked increase in the interest of European policymakers in the quality of work. In part this reflects the concern to give greater content to the notion of a social Europe, and in part it stems from a growing awareness that the cherished employment objectives of the European Union (in particular with respect to women and older workers) will be difficult to achieve unless jobs offer a degree of intrinsic interest and levels of work pressure that are compatible with psychological health. However, it is notable how little policy discussion draws on the growing evidence from empirical research. This paper aims to trace some of the principal developments in the research agenda and in substantive knowledge, drawing on a major programme of British empirical research over the last two decades. It focuses on two core aspects of work quality – skill on the one hand and job control on the other. These have been central to the debate about job quality since its earliest days. The next section outlines the evolving debate among researchers about underlying trends in the skill and control and the following section examines the emerging picture from the empirical evidence
To Never Know Heartbreak – Fetal Cardiac Intervention to Treat Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome
Get PDFCEO Compensation and Shareholder Value Orientation Among Large US Firms
Get PDFThe rise of shareholder value orientation among US firms has been studied extensively during the past few decades as a key component of financialisation. The firm-level mechanisms ofhow such institutional changes have affected firm behaviours are not well understood, however. This study examines the relationship between the shareholder value orientation of firms and financial rewards for the executive managers who run those companies. Using compensation data for 290 CEOs for an 11-year period, I demonstrate that CEOs at the firms with the appearance of shareholder value orientation – such as monitoring and incentive-alignment mechanisms – receive greater compensation than non-shareholder-value-orientation CEOs. Moreover, when the firms strengthen the appearance of shareholder value orientation, CEO pay increases the subsequent year. This suggests that firms adopt monitoring and incentive-alignment mechanisms in order to gain the appearance of shareholder value orientation rather than to curb executive compensation. By employing such symbolic management tactics, top managers at such firms earn greater legitimacy, a better reputation, and a higher valuation of the firms and executive talent. The findings suggest that executive compensation has played an important role in providing incentives for top managers to make strategic decisions that conform to the shareholder value maximisation principle
Conflicting Financial Incentives in the Irish Health-Care System
Get PDFIn health care, there is extensive empirical evidence that the behaviour of both providers and users is affected by the financial incentives that they face. In this paper, we adopt a systemwide perspective and develop a conceptual framework to examine how current financial incentives in Irish health care conflict along four dimensions: provider versus user, user across type of provider, provider versus provider, and provider across type of user. We highlight areas within each of these four dimensions where current financial incentive structures are incompatible with existing policy priorities. The analysis in the paper also provides a framework to assess the effects of proposed policy changes on financial incentives within the health-care system using a joint analytic approach