Vegetarianism is increasing in the western world. This trend can be attributed to heightened health, environmental and animal welfare concerns. In this paper we investigate the factors associated with vegetarianism and pescetarianism among adults in Ireland. Using the 2007 Survey of Lifestyles,...

In this paper we examine the distributional effects of Value Added Tax (VAT) in Ireland. Using the 2004/2005 Household Budget Survey, we assess the amount of VAT that households pay as a proportion of weekly disposable income. We measure VAT payments by equivalised income decile, households of...

The purpose of this paper is twofold. We first produce a labour market profile of non- Irish immigrants who arrived in Ireland in the ten years to 2003. We then go on to use the labour market profile in estimating the impact of immigration (non-Irish) on the Irish labour market. Immigrants are...

We explore the consequences of rising house prices for the openness of the Irish labour market. Since many immigrants are in the household formation age group, and tend to be highly skilled, we argue that the boom in house prices, by reducing the attractiveness of Ireland for potential...

This paper reviews the international literature on house price indices, looking at the basic methodologies employed, the variables chosen for the indices and the functional forms used. Ideas are sought for future improvements to an Irish index and tentative assessments are made of how Irish...

Perceptions and forecasts of inflation have the potential to impact on a range of economic outcomes. We reveal large, systematic overestimation of inflation by Irish consumers, which varies by social group. In contrast to previous work in this area, our models suggest the upward bias and the...

Having peaked in early 2007 Irish house prices have fallen steadily. Negative equity occurs if house price falls result in the house value being lower than the outstanding debt. Many in negative equity will be unaffected and will continue to pay their mortgage without difficulty. Negative equity...

We study the effects of carbon taxation and revenue recycling across the income distribution in Ireland. Price changes of fuels and all other final goods and services are taken into account. If applied only to the emissions not covered by the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, a carbon tax of...

We construct a model of the stock of private cars in the Republic of Ireland. The model distinguishes cars by fuel, engine size and age. The modelled car stock is built up from a long history of data on sales, and calibrated to recent data on actual stock. We complement the data on the number of...

Inbound tourism to Ireland fell sharply in 2009 and 2010. Visits to Ireland from the UK, the dominant country of origin of visitors to Ireland, did not fall faster than UK visits elsewhere. We use a pooled travel cost model for UK travellers to estimate price elasticities of tourism demand for...