This paper considers the relationship between democratic accountability in de- veloping countries and the policies they use to attract foreign direct investment (FDI). We isolate two policy areas that governments of developing countries use to attract FDI: the tax burden on firms and the...

The causality from outsourcing, defined as the procurement of inputs from outside the boundaries of the firm, to productivity is tested for a large panel of Irish manufacturing firms. Theory suggests that as firms outsource more 'non-core' activities to specialized providers, productivity due to...

The Irish banking system has in recent years experienced a large build-up in Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) during the crisis followed by a sharp reduction in the 2013-2017 period. In this article I present a recent history of the ongoing resolution of the mortgage arrears crisis in Ireland. Using...

The post-2008 period in the euro area was characterised by sharp dispersion in borrowing costs faced by firms, across both countries and firm types. This dispersion was an important manifestation of the financial fragmentation" which hampered the smooth transmission of accommodative monetary...

Banks mustmake forward-looking provisions for loan losses undernewinternational accounting standards introduced in 2018. In Europe, banks will assign performing exposures to a new "Stage 2" category with a higher provisioning penalty, if they have experienced significant increase in credit risk...

We analyse micro data on Irish mortgages and distressed households' balance sheets in the last decade to assess the debt resolution process in the Irish mortgage market in the lead up to the COVID-19 shock. We highlight the widespread engagement of Irish borrowers with debt resolution mechanisms...

I outline the effect of business networks on trade, FDI and wel- fare in a two-country, two-firm duopoly. The network effect, following Greaney (2002), is modelled as a marginal cost disadvantage facing a firm from Foreign in selling to Home. Unlike traditional trade costs, this cost cannot be...

Cross-country divergence in credit availability to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) has been a salient feature of the recent Euro Area economic crisis. This paper uses firm level and macroeconomic data to identify heterogeneity in SME credit conditions within the Euro Area since 2009. By...

Using a large panel data set on the population of UK mortgage loans by Irish-headquartered banks, this paper presents a transitions-based model of mortgage default. The estimation departs from cross-sectional methods typically used in mortgage default models, in that the transition both into and...