A review of the methodologies used in compiling owner-occupiers’ housing indices. ESRI Working Paper 651 January 2020

This paper examines the manner in which owner-occupiers housing costs are incorporated in the official inflation index. In particular, the focus is on the net acquisitions and the payments approach, which are currently used by the Central Statistics Office (CSO). The paper provides a detailed overview of the two approaches, along with some suggestion for further refinement

Quarterly Economic Commentary, Summer 2014

The release of the first set of macroeconomic estimates of the economy for 2014 confirms the relatively strong recovery in output envisaged for this year in earlier Commentaries. Estimates released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) suggest that for Q1 2014 GDP is up 2.7 per cent on the previous quarter and 4.1 per cent year-on-year. These estimates also contain a significant upward revision of the quarterly growth rate for Q4 2014 from -2.4 to-0.1 per cent

Supporting decision-making in retirement planning: do diagrams on pension benefit statements help? ESRI Research Bulletin 2019/09

This study used a controlled experiment to test whether explanatory diagrams can improve comprehension of pensions and increase willingness to contribute to a pension. The study was undertaken by the ESRI’s Behavioural Research Unit in collaboration with the Pensions Authority. Central Statistics Office (CSO) figures show that just 36% of 25-34 year-olds in employment have a pension plan. Even workers who do have a plan face replacement rates (income after retirement as a proportion of income before retirement) well below the recommended 70%. International research suggests that failure to understand how pensions work contributes to this picture. Meanwhile, evidence from educational psychology shows that, across multiple areas of learning, comprehension can be improved by diagrams. We therefore tested whether the inclusion of explanatory diagrams on a pension benefit statement (PBS) could, first, improve understanding of how pensions work and, second, increase willingness to contribute to a pension

Developers Hold Keys to Supply but They Can’t Control Demand

WITH all eyes on Ireland’s homelessness crisis, rising rental costs and an undersupply of newhousing on the market, people ask where the rising demand for homes is coming from. By concentrating on the economic and construction aspects of housing, many people miss the hugely important demographic aspect. Housing is and always will be about people. Brian Hughes, of the government’s Central Statistics Office (CSO) expert group, and Declan Redmond and Brendan Williams of University College Dublin have identified the four main drivers of housing demand—and they’re not what you’d think

The Digital Lives of Older Irish People: Contexts and Methods\ud of Enquiry

Ireland is experiencing significant increases in the numbers of older people as a proportion of the general population. In the last five years, the percentage of those above the age of sixty - five has risen by around nineteen per cent and currently stands at just over 637,000 (CSO, 2017), the various reasons for which align with global commonalities such as improving healthcare, decreases in fertility rates, and general improvements in standards of living (UN, 2015). Looking ahead, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) projects the numbers of those aged over sixty - five in Ireland will rise to just over 887,000 in 2027

Projections of Agricultural Incomes.

End of Project ReportThis report documents work completed on the inputs and income component of the FAPRI-Ireland model, which has been operational for policy analysis since December 1998. The report will present the results of three major different policies analysed over this period. The model itself is decomposed into two primary constituents – the first is a model of aggregate Irish input consumption by agricultural producers and secondly the overall aggregate income figure for Irish agriculture. Output models have been constructed for dairy, livestock products and crops. The aim of the income model is to replicate line for line the Central Statistics Office (CSO) Agricultural Output, Input and Income table for a “baseline” result and for different policy scenarios

The Irish Woollen and Worsted Industry, 1946-59 : A Study in Statistical Method. ESRI General Research Series Paper No. 7, July 1962

The object of the present paper is to analyse in some detail the extensive statistical data provided in the annual Censuses of Industrial Production (CIP) conducted annually by the Central Statistics Office (CSO). The Woollen and Worsted industry (hereinafter the "Industry") has been selected because, as compared with most other industries, it is relatively homogeneous in products and materials. The author has no special knowledge of the Industry’s problems except that which emerges from a study of the statistics. It is hoped that this paper will bring these problems into sharper focus and thus contribute something to their solution; and if this pilot effort be deemed successful in whole or in part the methods used could be extended to other industries

Productivity spillovers from multinational activity to indigenous firms in Ireland. ESRI WP587, March 2018

As well as their direct effects on output and employment, the attraction of foreign direct investment is sometimes argued to provide further economic benefits through spillover effects that potentially increase the productivity performance of domestic firms. Empirical evidence on this has however tended to be mixed. This paper uses Irish firm-level data on both manufacturing and services firms to re-examine and update tests of intraindustry and intra-region spillovers and then extends the previous research by examining if spillovers are more likely to occur through supply chain linkages. We further test for the sensitivity of these vertical spillover effects to alternative supply chain measures. Overall, we find fairly limited evidence of a link between the presence of foreign-owned firms and the performance of domestic firms with considerable sensitivity of results to changes in specification. Important variation across sectors is identified, however, with more robust evidence of intra-industry spillovers on the productivity performance of firms in services. Examining forward and backward linkages through supply chains indicates some negative impacts from obtaining supplies from and supplying foreign-owned firms although these are mitigated for domestic firms which invest in R&D, which appears to increase the absorptive capacity of the firms to benefit from productivity spillovers

An Economy-Wide Perspective on Earnings Data in Ireland: Methodological Issues and Analysis. ESRI WP156. 2004

The objective of this article is to give a detailed description as to how earnings data is recorded in the Irish economy and to develop new methods of presenting this data in order to give a more comprehensive picture of wage movements over the period since 1998. Currently, earnings data are published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) on a sectoral basis with similar methodological backgrounds across the surveys. However, the surveys can vary though in terms of their scope. For example the industrial earnings survey presents both hourly and weekly earnings series’ while the distribution & business services earnings survey contains just weekly earnings data. The type of worker being surveyed can also vary, some surveys covering all workers and other surveys covering just full-time workers. Therefore, a discussion of the various sectoral earnings surveys is necessary

PRODUCTIVITY SPILLOVERS FROM MULTINATIONAL ACTIVITY TO LOCAL FIRMS IN IRELAND. OECD PRODUCTIVITY WORKING PAPERS No. 16, November 2018

As well as their direct effects on output and employment, the attraction of foreign direct investment is sometimes argued to provide further economic benefits through spillover effects that potentially increase the productivity performance of domestic firms. Empirical evidence on these indirect effects has however tended to be mixed. This paper uses Irish firm-level data on both manufacturing and services firms to re-examine and update evidence on intra-industry and intra-region spillovers and then extends the previous research by examining if spillovers are more likely to occur through supply chain linkages. In addition, we consider the heterogeneity of investors and allow the spillover effects to differ for foreign affiliates owned by EU and non-EU based parent companies. Finally, we examine the role of domestic firms’ absorptive capacity in conditioning the effects of spillovers from multinationals on their productivity. Overall, we find limited evidence or a negative link between the presence of foreign-owned firms and the productivity of domestic firms in the same industry or the same region. Examining forward and backward linkages through supply chains indicates that on average, selling to foreign-owned firms had a positive effect while buying from foreign owned firms had a negative effect on the average productivity of domestic firms. Finally, considering the absorptive capacity of domestic firms and allowing the spillover effects to differ depending on the origin of the parent companies, we find that the positive productivity spillovers come from supply chain linkages between domestic firms investing in R&D and foreign affiliates of multinationals with headquarters based outside the EU