Tag: ireland
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Only the tax system can save the Irish housing market…
In a country that is only 4% urbanized to have a scarcity of land for building takes quite some doing. It takes generations, generations in which the political class, and those who elect them, ignored best interests of long-term planning; The budget next week as an opportunity to begin to undo some of this, but…
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What Ireland’s crash tells us about bankers views on Scottish Independence
The next week is going to be fascinating. I have no idea how Scotland will vote, for or against independence. I have no idea how I would vote were I there. Economically, there is probably a somewhat stronger argument for NO than YES, if you believe the politicians promises. But national self determination is not…
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Why the rush to replace Universities with Innoversities…?
Ireland, or at least the government, is in the grip of a frenzy around entrepreneurship. From local government, through the higher education system, to the highest in the land, hardly a day goes by without some new band jumping on the wagon. We are being flogged with the mantra that we must start up, become…
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Knowledge Transfer Ireland – Give it away, give it away now…
The Irish Times has today printed a laudatory, uncritical, advertorial on Knowledge Transfer Ireland. It is to me a thousand word puff piece, which contains little hard facts, no analysis, and little news. There is one piece of news, to which I will come. The piece reads, and may be, as an extraction and repackaging,…
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Why are Buy to Let Mortgages being allowed fester?
The mortgage crisis is the rancid gift that keeps on oozing. The publication this week by the Department of Finance of mortgage arrears figures highlights the festering lethargy that has characterised much of the Irish response to the financial crisis. That it publishes slightly different figures on the same issue as the central bank highlights the embedded…
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Knowledge Transfer Ireland – Partial, Error ridden and Naïve
Knowledge is only useful if people know it exists. So it is great to see Knowledge Transfer Ireland established, to start to allow organizations and individuals to seek out the knowledge in Irish third level institutions. At least , it would be if it worked. . It doesnt Look first at economics. Inputting “economics” …
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Grade inflation in Irish universities
The recent discussion around the comments of Paddy Cosgrave, the founder of The Summit, have reignited the question of grade inflation. Facts are useful on this…the chart shows the increase in top degree classes over time Data Source: http://www.stopgradeinflation.ie/TCD_GI.doc
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What good is a university education?
What good is a university? Economists think a lot about goods, and the classifications of them can shed some light on the present state of Irish higher education. We can think about goods in several ways. All are useful.