A Survey of Explanations for the Celtic Tiger Boom

This paper surveys the literature that attempts to explain what caused the Celtic Tiger boom. The suggested explanations that are covered include fiscal stabilisation, tax cuts, delayed convergence, privatisation and deregulation, strong growth in export markets, supply of labour, education, the single European market, EU structural funds, social partnership, foreign direct investment, the small/regional nature of the economy, Irish indigenous industry and some other explanations. It is argued that some of these suggested explanations are not very convincing or important.