Policy lessons from Ireland’s latest depression

Karl Whelan ()

No 200914, Working Papers from School of Economics, University College Dublin

Abstract: In this paper, I provide a selective review of Ireland’s economic performance of the last 20 years, from the early days of the Celtic Tiger, through to the housing boom and the recent slump, and then attempt to draw a few lessons from the period. I argue, based on a range of observations, that a substantial slowdown was looming for Ireland by 2007, independent of what was going to happen in the global economy, and much of this evidence was ignored in the implementation of economic policy. The result was a range of policies based on an unwarranted over-optimism which left Ireland terribly exposed to the international downturn. Policy failures in the fiscal and banking are are discussed, as well as some common criticisms of policy that have less justification.

Keywords: Ireland--Economic conditions; Ireland--Economic policy; Global Financial Crisis, 2008-2009; Recessions--Ireland (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-10
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10197/2612 First version, 2009 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Policy Lessons from Ireland’s Latest Depression (2010)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucn:wpaper:200914

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from School of Economics, University College Dublin Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Nicolas Clifton ().