Mitigating and adapting to climate change is a central global challenge that may incur costs for many businesses but also one that could bring opportunities in terms of productivity and new markets. Increased use of digital technologies is an area where the challenge of climate adaptation and...

While problems in the housing system in Ireland have been under the spotlight for the last decade, relatively little attention has been paid to the experience of children and to the consequences of housing issues for child development. International research has highlighted a range of effects of...

Over-indebtedness, defined as the inability for a household to meet both essential living expenses and debt repayments, continues to be a significant phenomenon throughout Europe. The problem plays out differently in various countries depending on the relevant credit market, culture around...

Early childhood is a key life stage and early childhood experiences are crucial not only for children's well-being, but for their subsequent development. There is increasing evidence that social inequalities in outcomes emerge even before children start school, and a large body of international...

This paper considers the design of efficient Distribution Use of System (DUoS) tariffs for the Irish electricity distribution network. We calculate indicative costreflective 'Coasian' tariff for residential, commercial and industrial consumers. Under a cost-reflective 'Coasian' structure, non...

Unlike most European countries, a majority of the population in Ireland pay out of pocket for a range of primary-care services, including general practitioner (GP) care. In 2017, the Committee on the Future of Healthcare published its final report (the Sláintecare Report; Houses of the...

Northern Ireland's productivity performance has persistently been the worst of any UK region. This is despite having the apparent benefit of subnational industrial policy since the 1920s. Can institutions - through the interaction between business and local policymakers - explain this...

Die COVID-19-Pandemie hat für ein "soziales Massen-Experiment der Telearbeit" gesorgt, wie eine OECDStudie es formulierte. Denn die Anteile der Erwerbstätigen, die von zuhause arbeiten, stiegen weltweit rapide an. Auch die Anteile der Menschen mit Behinderungen stiegen an, allerdings nicht so...

The increase in inward migration has been an important change in Ireland and Northern Ireland in recent decades. Migration can bring opportunities but also challenges. Integration not only allows immigrants to contribute to the economic, social, cultural, and political life of their host...

Personal assistance (PA) services have been an evolving part of Irish provision for people with physical and sensory impairments for roughly three decades, but the lack of national standards for allocation, provision or data collection have made it an opaque system characterised by piecemeal or...

Despite the right of disabled people to full social and economic inclusion, many face multiple day-to-day and systemic challenges. These include but are not limited to additional expenses, access to housing, and everyday accessibility difficulties. Surveys show the general public hold positive...

Monopsonists suppress employment and wages so as to avoid matching higher wages to their existing employees. Minimum wage hikes force them to pay their existing employees more, reducing the marginal cost of hiring and increasing both wages and employment. However, once the minimum wage exceeds...

Economic theory predicts that monopsonistic employers suppress wages below the marginal product of labour. We measure local labour market (LLM) concentration in Ireland from 2008 to 2019 using an employment share HerfindahlHirschmann Index (HHI), a proxy for monopsony power. LLM concentration in...

What effect does political instability in the form of a potential secession from a political union have on business formation? Using new measures of business creation and political instability in Ireland during the late nineteenth-century, we test whether increased political instability arising...

A large body of research in economics and other disciplines considers the role of early-life circumstances in shaping later-life outcomes. The foetal origins hypothesis establishes that certain health conditions in later adulthood can be linked to in-utero development. In this paper, we...

We apply insights from the political economy of secession to analyse the early years of the Irish Free State (IFS). The IFS was fortuitous in a debt settlement that enabled it to begin its existence debt free, whilst also receiving financial assistance to quell civil unrest. Yet the IFS was...

Exploring children's awareness of social categories could uncover the foundation of intergroup attitudes and behaviours. Indigenous to Ireland, Travellers are an ethnic minority marked by a tradition of nomadism, only formally recognised as a distinct ethnic group in 2017. This brief report...

Ireland developed one of the world's most intensive railroad networks in the second half of the 19th century. However, the emergence of railroads occurred in tandem with a failure to industrialize and mass depopulation suggesting limited, if any, impact on the island's economy. This paper...

In this study, a large, representative sample of the Irish population undertook a multiple-choice quiz about climate change. The 10-minute quiz was designed to engage participants and to measure their understanding, not of facts and figures, but of the scientific relationships behind climate...

A large body of research in economics and other disciplines considers the role of early-life circumstances in shaping later-life outcomes. The foetal origins hypothesis establishes that certain health conditions in later adulthood can be linked to in-utero development. In this paper, we...

This study uses new administrative earnings data, linked to the Irish Labour Force Survey, to analyse the impact of three successive minimum wage increases that took place over the period 2016 to 2018, on the hours worked of minimum wage employees. The study allows for the assessment of the...

What effect does political instability in the form of a potential secession from a political union have on business formation? Using new measures of business creation and political instability in Ireland during the late nineteenth-century, we test whether increased political instability arising...

Assessing the contribution of intangible investment to growth is a challenging and complex task for any country. However, it has become increasingly difficult to determine both the exact magnitude of economic performance and its composition in the case of the Irish economy. This is mainly due to...

We analyse the effect of varying equivalization scales and income-sharing units (households, tax-units and benefit-units) on inequality and poverty statistics using Irish microdata. We find that benchmark equivalence scales result in substantial variation in the degree of income poverty...

In recent years, Ireland has experienced a notable decline in homeownership and a rise in the proportion of households in private rental accommodation. Concurrently, the cost of both rents and house prices have risen markedly and affordability challenges in terms of meeting housing costs have...

Typically, energy system decarbonisation scenarios neglect the mitigation opportunities from reducing and restructuring energy service demands (ESDs), focusing instead on technology and fuel substitutions. Models tend to be designed to factor technologies explicitly while ESDs are exogenous....

Existing research has shown that disability is costly and can result in an increased risk of living in poverty and a decrease in living standards. In this paper, we expand a framework of equality budgeting, previously applied from a gender perspective, to the population of households affected by...

The relationship between health and employment status continually shows that individuals who work have lower levels of illness and higher self-reported health. This study examines how self-reported health and objective measures of health (multimorbidity and mental health problems) differ across...

Ireland is an outlier among EU countries as it does not have a strong link between previous earnings and the level of payment provided to those who have recently lost their job or are on leave from work for the short- to medium-term for reasons of illness or maternity. This paper provides a...

The COVID-19 pandemic and related public health restrictions have led to severe disruptions in day-to-day lives, including education, employment and social activities. Young adults have experienced the highest rate of job loss during the pandemic (Central Statistics Office, 2020b). This study...

This report - funded by the Community Foundation for Ireland - explores the issue of energy poverty and deprivation in Ireland, once again to the forefront of the policy debate given recent increases in energy prices.

Rental affordability challenges for low-to-moderate-income groups have been well documented. Changes to housing supports in recent years, notably the rapid expansion of Housing Assistance Payment (HAP), aim to address affordability challenges for low-income households in the rental sector....