The 1955-56 macroeconomic crisis is a central event in modern Irish history. Yet, despite this centrality, its causes are not clearly understood. In 1955-6, Ireland, which had previously followed British interest rates in lockstep as part of its fixed exchange with the latter, briefly...

This paper employs predictive regressions to explore the predictability of sovereign Credit Default Swap (CDS) spread dynamics of relevant oil-producing countries. By incorporating oil prices and additional control variables, we predict the rate of CDS spread changes for Brazil, the UK,...

This policy brief summarises key findings from the project Hidden Barriers to Conservation-Addressing Social Acceptability to Enhance Effective Management in the Galapagos Marine Reserve, conducted by Heriot-Watt University with the support of The Rufford Foundation, in collaboration with the...

This work aims to determine whether the difference between skill and education-based measures of labour mismatch affects the estimates of the labour mismatch-earnings relationship as specified by Verdugo and Verdugo's (1989) version of over, required and undereducation (ORU) Mincer earnings...

This paper introduces conformal inference, a powerful and flexible framework for constructing prediction intervals with guaranteed coverage in finite samples. Unlike conventional methods, conformal inference makes no assumptions about the underlying data distribution other than exchangeability....

There has been widespread debate about whether the way in which we measure economic activity is fit for purpose in the twenty-first century. One aspect of this debate is to move away from measuring a nation's income (GDP) towards monitoring a nation's assets (their inclusive wealth), as a better...

This paper analyses the decisions made by ministers of the Church of Scotland regarding whether to leave and join the Free Church, or remain within the establishment, at the time of the 1843 Disruption. Using a newly constructed dataset drawn from a range of hitherto unconnected sources, it...

As climate change becomes an ever-present problem, efforts have been made to make energy generation greener. One key tool to encourage renewable energy generation are feed-in-tariff policies, which have been employed in various countries across Europe. Using quarterly data, this study...

In the decade before the Great Famine, Ireland experienced a boom in microfinance institutions (MFIs). Taking a social enterprise perspective, this paper analyses the institutional context for this boom. It finds evidence linking the boom in MFIs to the development, via the introduction of the...