Ireland - Hero to zero!

Generali

Ireland's GDP per capita is about 20% higher than the UK's so they're clearly doing something right.

bigheadxx

Generali wrote: »

Ireland's GDP per capita is about 20% higher than the UK's so they're clearly doing something right.

Ireland still has a long way to fall. Wages are still being cut, public debt is rising and the figure is distorted by the exchange rate.

Generali

bigheadxx wrote: »

Ireland still has a long way to fall. Wages are still being cut, public debt is rising and the figure is distorted by the exchange rate.

You could say the first two about the UK too.

Degenerate

Generali wrote: »

Ireland's GDP per capita is about 20% higher than the UK's so they're clearly doing something right.

Is that nominal GDP or PPP? How recently were the figures produced, what was the exchange rate at the time? It's been steadily climbing this year, but the pound is still considerably undervalued vs the Euro. That's before you even consider the massive internal divergence in the Euro-zone, which means that even PPP figures will not tell the whole story for Ireland.

Generali

Degenerate wrote: »

Is that nominal GDP or PPP? How recently were the figures produced, what was the exchange rate at the time? It's been steadily climbing this year, but the pound is still considerably undervalued vs the Euro. That's before you even consider the massive internal divergence in the Euro-zone, which means that even PPP figures will not tell the whole story for Ireland.

The IMF, World Bank and CIA numbers all say about the same thing. I'm not sure about the other 2 but the CIA use Government figures for GDP and population (where available, otherwise they use the UNICP numbers) and they make an attempt to adjust for purchasing power parity using figures from the World Bank PPP project.

If the difference between UK and Irish GDP were a couple of percent then I'd be wary of saying which had the higher GDP per head. That Ireland's is 20% bigger is significant I think.

Generali

Torchboy wrote: »

A rather banal remark. Greece, Portugal, Spain, etc had EU grants too but they didn't have 'Celtic Tiger' economies. A young educated workforce and large scale US investment based upon familial links were crucial in the 'Celtic Tiger' phenomenon, however temporary that phenomenon may have been.

I think it's far from temporary.

Companies as diverse as Kellogg's, Google, Microsoft, EBay and PayPal all have their European HQs in Dublin, those are good employers with lots of well paid jobs on offer. The private sector in Ireland has a good long-term future.

The Government's finances look very iffy and that will be a drag on GDP for a while but the things that made Dublin attractive (English speaking, low taxes, little Government interference with business comparatively speaking) remain.

vivatifosi

Generali wrote: »

I think it's far from temporary.

Companies as diverse as Kellogg's, Google, Microsoft, EBay and PayPal all have their European HQs in Dublin, those are good employers with lots of well paid jobs on offer. The private sector in Ireland has a good long-term future.

The Government's finances look very iffy and that will be a drag on GDP for a while but the things that made Dublin attractive (English speaking, low taxes, little Government interference with business comparatively speaking) remain.

I agree with this and also torchboy's comments earlier.

The Celtic Tiger years undoubtedly led to a bubble in terms of housing, but people have to understand what a coup the country pulled off in terms of the amount of inward investment pulled into Ireland.

At the time, I was being paid to monitor inward investment trends. American companies were doing well and looking to invest overseas, particularly those from then nascent tech industries.

Until that point the UK held the advantage. There is a long history of US companies investing in the UK over the rest of Europe, not just because of the language and implied shared culture but also because of the fact that the UK and Ireland could spend an hour longer a day trading with the US because of the time differences. This latter point is one that the government would do well to bear in mind as it is looking to move the clocks forward here.

To put not to fine a point on it, Ireland very successfully nicked inward investment that would for the most part probably otherwise have come to the UK. In doing so, it brought in well-paid work in knowledge industries to a young and well educated workforce. Headlines said the Irish diaspora was returning.

Has Ireland got a lot wrong at the same time as developing its Foreign Direct Investment policy? Heck yeah. But you can't dismiss it as an irrelevance. Remember, most of these companies are not establishing themselves in Ireland to do business in Ireland, they are setting up their European beach-head.

So will they continue to do so? Fair question. Inward investment slows in a downturn, but as Ireland itself points out (with a little help from PWC), it is:
* First for FDI jobs per capita
* 3rd most globalised nation after Singapore and Hong Kong

bigheadxx

Generali wrote: »

The IMF, World Bank and CIA numbers all say about the same thing. I'm not sure about the other 2 but the CIA use Government figures for GDP and population (where available, otherwise they use the UNICP numbers) and they make an attempt to adjust for purchasing power parity using figures from the World Bank PPP project.

If the difference between UK and Irish GDP were a couple of percent then I'd be wary of saying which had the higher GDP per head. That Ireland's is 20% bigger is significant I think.

All figures are open to interpretation. It is often touted that Irish productivity is 30% above the EU average. However if you dig a little further you find that the Irish work the longest hours in Europe and productivity per hour is a mere 4% higher.

Generali

bigheadxx wrote: »

All figures are open to interpretation. It is often touted that Irish productivity is 30% above the EU average. However if you dig a little further you find that the Irish work the longest hours in Europe and productivity per hour is a mere 4% higher.

So the Irish are slightly more productive and far harder working than average. It's no surprise that the country has been doing so well!

Degenerate

Generali wrote: »

the things that made Dublin attractive (English speaking, low taxes, little Government interference with business comparatively speaking) remain.

I don't share your optimism. AIUI, a big part of the low taxes thing was actually time-limited investment concessions. The expiry of these is one reason Dell, who contributed a staggering 5% of Irish GDP in recent years, is massively scaling back it's operations. Another reason is that the Irish economy simply isn't competitive any more. The Euro remains over-valued and even within the Euro-zone, Ireland is seriously out of whack. Like other peripheral members, it's wages and prices spiraled out of control in the years leading up to the crash.