The war in Ukraine and the subsequent increase in energy and other commodity prices has dampened the economic outlook. There are increased downside risks to economic activity and there is also considerable uncertainty around any economic projections and how they may evolve in the future. This...

In this paper, we explore the impact of recent interest rate increases on the Irish economy and chart out the potential impact using scenarios for the period 2023- 2025. We use the COSMO macroeconometric model of the Irish economy to test the impacts through credit markets and the real economy,...

In this paper, we use novel firm-level microdata for Ireland to explore the factors that determine the investment in digitalisation for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). More specifically, we use cross-sectional survey data to explore whether firm fundamentals or constraints act...

Numerous research papers have used Irish-only data to test for the presence of an investment gap for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In this paper, we use cross country firm-level survey data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys to explore the investment patterns of Irish SMEs in a...

The credit bubble experienced by the Irish residential and financial sector immediately prior to the global financial crisis (GFC) was one of the largest experienced across contemporary western economies. The Irish property market had witnessed a significant increase in activity as the economy...

The corporate tax rate and regime are policy instruments that are the subject of considerable attention for the role they play in attracting foreign multinationals making location decisions across countries. This paper examines the effects of corporate tax on these location decisions of newly...

This research attempts to answer two particular questions: a) what factors drive SME credit constraints in the Irish economy and b) what is the impact of such constraints on the macro-economy, in particular on employment and investment. We find that constraints decrease with firm size while...

This paper considers the effect of systemic financial crises on aggregate consumption. Using a sample of 23 countries over 32 years, we find that consumption growth seems lower during banking crises, crises following credit booms and crises following house price booms. Moreover, the response to...

Small and medium enterprises have been shown to rely mainly on banks for funding and, unlike larger firms, rarely have direct access to capital markets. This paper looks at the extent to which SMEs avail of a wider range of funding options and how their use differs across firms and countries....

The years before the financial crisis saw a dramatic build-up in private debt levels in several countries and this increase was particularly marked in Ireland. In this paper, we look at whether outstanding debt taken out by small and medium sized enterprises in Ireland constrains current...