Unemployment and Labour Force Participation during the Recession

The slowdown in Irish economic activity since 2008 has been accompanied by a rise in unemployment and a sharp fall in the labour force participation rate. This note uses data from the Quarterly National Household Survey to examine the fall in participation among the younger age groups and finds that the majority of those who have exited the labour force but remain in Ireland have returned to education. The note draws attention to the substantial rise in broader measures of unemployment during the recession due to increases in the number of discouraged and marginally attached workers.

Technology in the College Classroom: Crisis and Opportunity

The 21st century classroom is large, diverse, underfunded, and populated by students weaned on digital devices espousing a consumer mentality looking for a good return on investment (ROI) on their education. These students, the so-called millennials, and the coming Generation Z, who have grown up in the digital age, are more pragmatic than previous generations of students and are less amenable to traditional teaching approaches. While some lament this crisis in education, it can be seen as an opportunity. As digital natives, students are immersed in the newer technologies both as consumers and producers and anticipate remaining plugged in during college and beyond. Harnessing this interest and expertise and effectively integrating these newer technologies into the classroom can help solve this crisis. Technology enhanced teaching has the potential to transform learning, deepen student engagement, and connect with the more varied and numerous student cohorts. This article explores how effective use of ePortfolios can be aligned with learning goals to create meaningful, engaging, and innovative assignments that transform the classroom from a site of prescriptive learning, where information is unilaterally transmitted, to one of distributed expertise, where knowledge is jointly created, and digitally literate students are equipped to become the life-long, tech-savvy, self-directed learners that this new century demands. But there are no guarantees. This article concludes by acknowledging tensions in the tech-laden classroom, fears that technology is driving pedagogy, poor understanding of key affordances, and misalignment between instructional goals, learning outcomes, and students\u27 understandings

Supporting First-Generation Students’ Adjustment to College With High-Impact Practices

This qualitative case study describes some of the issues faced by incoming first-generation college students at a private, 4-year institution in the northwest. Using constructs drawn from social cognitive theory and social cognitive career theory, it explores how high-impact practices such as learning communities, writing-intensive courses, and ePortfolios might impact first-generation students’ adjustment during their first year of college. The findings of the research on students’ writing in their first-year composition course suggest that the cumulative impact of engaging in multiple high-impact practices improves students’ literacy and study skills. In addition, these educational practices appear to increase students’ self-appraisal of their academic abilities in general and their institutional commitment. As a consequence of their increased self-efficacy and engagement, this study suggests that students are more likely to experience better academic outcomes, leading them to persist in their studies and be retained after their first year at college

Managing Housing Bubbles in Regional Economies Under EMU: Ireland and Spain

emu/Ireland

MANAGING HOUSING BUBBLES IN REGIONAL ECONOMIES UNDER EMU: IRELAND AND SPAIN. ESRI Research Bulletin 2010/2/1

The international financial crisis has inflicted substantial damage on many economies around the globe. In Ireland and Spain, the impact has been particularly severe, due largely to the collapse of housing bubbles in both economies. The significant economic instability caused by the abrupt ending of such housing market bubbles highlights the importance of developing policy instruments to manage housing markets and to prevent dangerous bubbles from emerging. Our recent paper** shows how the advent of EMU relaxed financial constraints in Ireland and Spain, allowing for a more rapid expansion of the housing stock in those countries to meet their specific demographic circumstances. If this process had been properly managed there would have been significant benefits for both economies. However, because the housing boom was not controlled by governments these two economies have suffered serious damage. Due to the idiosyncratic nature of housing markets, monetary policy, as implemented by the ECB, cannot be used to manage housing markets within regional economies in EMU. However, the paper argues that fiscal policy instruments can and should be used to manage housing bubbles and thereby avoid the severe damage caused to economies by their collapse

The Macro-Economic Impact of Changing the Rate of Corporation Tax. ESRI WP273. January 2009

This paper considers the impact of changes in the rate of corporation tax in Ireland affecting the services sector. A model is estimated that relates services exports and output to world activity, competitiveness and the rate of corporation tax. This model indicates that a reduction in the rate of corporation tax in the 1990s stimulated exports and, even allowing for profit repatriations by foreign firms and replacement of lost tax revenue, it resulted in an increase in domestic output. The increase in profitability suggests that some of the increased output involved relocation of profits to Ireland by multinational firms

Quarterly Economic Commentary, Spring 2010. RESEARCH BULLETIN 10/1

For 2010, we expect GNP to be essentially unchanged from its 2009 volume; the corresponding figure for GDP is -½ per cent. Underlying these annual figures is a quarterly profile in which positive growth emerges during the year but not at a pace to return the annual figure to positive territory. For 2011, we expect GNP to grow by 2¾ per cent and GDP to grow by 2½ per cent. While this return to growth is to be welcomed, it should be seen as a modest pace of growth

The Macro-economic Impact of Changing the Rate of Corporation Tax. ESRI Research Bulletin 2011/2/1

The size and importance of the market services sector within the Irish economy has increased dramatically since the mid 1990s and the sector now accounts for a significant share of overall exports. The rise in output and employment in market services coincided with the reduction in the corporation tax rate applicable to the sector from 40 per cent in 1994 to 12½ per cent in 2003. This low corporation tax regime was introduced for the manufacturing sector in the late 1950s. However, the exceptional growth in that sector peaked in the 1990s and thus the precise impact of the low tax rate for the manufacturing sector is not obvious. The extension of this low tax regime to the business and financial services sector after 1994 constitutes a natural experiment which allows us to consider the before and after periods and to derive an estimate of the macroeconomic impact of this tax change

Quarterly Economic Commentary, Autumn 2010. RESEARCH BULLETIN 10/3

The two most significant announcements on economic matters since the last Commentary were the release of the Quarterly National Accounts for Q2 2010 on 23 September 2010 and the government’s statement on banking on 30 September. In the case of the former, the news was, at best, disappointing while in the case of the latter, it was horrendous. Both have impacted upon our view of the timing of potential recovery in the economy and on appropriate policy

Managing housing bubbles in regional economies under EMU: Ireland and Spain

With the advent of EMU monetary policy can no longer be used to prevent housing market bubbles in regional economies such as Ireland or Spain. However, fiscal policy can and should be used to achieve the same effect. This paper shows that the advent of EMU relaxed existing financial constraints in Ireland and Spain, allowing a more rapid expansion of the housing stock in those countries to meet their specific demographic circumstances. However, the failure to prevent these booms turning into bubbles did lasting damage to the two economies, damage that could have been avoided by more appropriate fiscal policy action