Assessing price sustainability in the Irish housing market: a county-level analysis. ESRI Research Notes 2019/4/1

In the wake of a number of high profile property crashes, a question that has come to the fore recently is; are housing booms and busts clustered in specific areas within countries or do they tend to be more pan-regional? Within the United States for example, considerable variation in the boom-bust cycle has been experienced with the so-called ‘sand states’ (California, Florida, Arizona, and Nevada) showing much greater fluctuations in prices than other regions following the financial crisis.2 In an Irish context, a significant issue of interest is the apparent divergence between the Dublin property market and other regional markets as well as the difference between urban and rural areas

Quarterly Economic Commentary Winter 2019

No Abstract

Property prices and COVID-19 related administrative closures: What are the implications? ESRI Working Paper 661 May 2020.

In this paper we examine the implications for the Irish housing market of the economic slowdown due to the Covid-19 virus. While necessary from a public health perspective, the administrative closure implemented by the Irish authorities in March 2020 has had several significant repercussions for the domestic residential market. As hundreds of thousands of workers lose their jobs over a short period of time, income levels in general are set to fall across the economy, with knock-on implications for affordability and housing demand. Additionally, the nature of the administrative closedown will also impact the residential market through the collapse in housing related activity for the period in question. In this paper we augment an inverted demand function for housing to include a residential market activity variable and estimate the impact on house prices of the decline in economic activity due to the virus-related measures. We also examine the likely future path of house prices based on two different recovery scenarios with a series of house price forecasts to the end of 2021

Quarterly Economic Commentary, Autumn 2019.

Although the Irish economy continues to perform in a robust manner, a number of considerations arise given the present growth performance. Firstly, due to certain multinational related activities, a divergence is likely once again between headline and underlying output growth for the present year. While we are revising upwards our forecast of headline GDP to just less than 5 per cent for 2019, certain underlying data would suggest the growth outlook has moderated somewhat as we move through the present year. Secondly, a number of significant international related risks are on the horizon for the Irish economy. As with previous Commentaries, our forecasts, unless otherwise stated, are subject to the technical assumption that the United Kingdom remains part of the European Union

Assessing the impacts of COVID-19 on the Irish property market: An overview of the issues. ESRI QEC Special Article September 2020.

In this paper we examine some of the potential channels through which COVID-19 is likely to impact the Irish housing market and discuss some policy areas which may need refocusing or re-evaluation. Building on existing work by ESRI researchers, we examine the implications under the headings of housing demand, housing supply, affordability of prices and the rental market. While there is likely to be a significant number of effects across a wide variety of headings, the most long-lasting impact of the crisis is the potential exacerbation of the imbalance between housing demand and supply which already exists in the market. The most efficient policy response in that context is for an increase in the State provision of social and affordable housing over the short to medium term

Sovereign debt after COVID-19: How the involvement of the ECB can impact the recovery path of a Member State. ESRI QEC Special Article December 2020.

The QEC Special Article Sovereign debt after COVID-19: How the involvement of the ECB can impact the recovery path of a member state explores how ECB purchases of Irish sovereign bonds can impact the recovery path of the Irish economy over the next 10 years. The model used examines how policy intervention can mitigate the negative effects of the pandemic

Quarterly Economic Commentary, Winter 2018.

The Irish economy looks set to register another very strong year of growth in 2018, with the outlook remaining positive as well for 2019. While difficulties persist with the interpretation of the National Accounts, it is fair to say that the growth performance in 2018 has been broadly based with both domestic and external factors contributing significantly to the growth performance

Quarterly Economic Commentary, Spring 2019.

2018 saw the Irish economy register another sizeable increase in activity with GDP estimated to have risen by 6.7 per cent. While some of this increase is due to the disproportionate activities of a select number of multinational firms, the underlying performance of the economy is still remarkably strong. Increases in taxation receipts, even aside from corporation taxes and the ongoing dynamic performance of the labour market, are compelling evidence of this