The Irish Currency Report of 1804

May 2004 marks the 200-year anniversary of the publication of the Irish Currency Report of 1804.

Why do some countries produce so much more output per worker than others? A note.

In an important paper. Hal! and Jones (1999) show that international differences in output per worker across 127 countries in 1988 are fundamentally determined by variations in. what they term, a country's "social infrastructure". This paper conducts a robustness check of their findings by implementing a testing framework that is radically different to their approach. Specifically, we estimate a stochastic, rather than a deterministic, production frontier and we also model the potential role of social infrastructure in explaining productivity in a single step, rather than the statistically unsatisfactory- two-step method used by Hall and Jones. We obtain two important findings that are strongly supportive of Hall and Jones' results. First, the bulk of inter-country variation in output per worker is accounted for by differences in productivity. Second, social infrastructure is found to be a highly significant variable in explaining inter-country productivity differences.Productivity, Social Infrastructure, Stochastic Production Frontier.

Direct payments and Risk Premia: How fared Irish Cereal Producers Under the MacSharry Reforms?

The 1992 EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) MacSharry reforms reduced intervention prices for cereals and simultaneously introduced direct payments to producers. This paper estimating Irish cereal producers risk attitudes and associated premiums, comapares the level of the direct apyment with producers risk permia in order to soe whether the introduction of the reforms was implicitly welfare enhancing for the 1993-1998 time period

Direct payments and Risk Premia: How fared Irish Cereal Producers Under the MacSharry Reforms?

The 1992 EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) MacSharry reforms reduced intervention prices for cereals and simultaneously introduced direct payments to producers. This paper estimating Irish cereal producers risk attitudes and associated premiums, comapares the level of the direct apyment with producers risk permia in order to soe whether the introduction of the reforms was implicitly welfare enhancing for the 1993-1998 time period

An overview of Irish pig production, research and knowledge transfer since 1960

peer-reviewedPig production in Ireland has gone through enormous changes during the past 60 yr, from pigs being primarily produced as a sideline on dairy farms, to an industry with one of the highest average herd sizes in Europe. This happened in part due to external pressure on the industry, whereby economies of scale were needed to compete with pigs produced in other countries, but largely due to the instigation of national programmes to support the pig industry through research, education and knowledge transfer. These efforts helped producers to take advantage of genetic improvements and monitor their own performance over time, as well as allowing for benchmarking of the national herd against other countries. The research programme initiated in the 1960s continues to grow and expand, providing the pig industry with internationally renowned data and knowledge in the areas of nutrition, animal welfare, the environment and energy use. Recent initiatives such as the establishment of the Teagasc and Irish Farmers Association Pig Joint Programme, and a Pig Health Check section in Animal Health Ireland, will help to promote further cross-collaboration between stakeholders in the pig industry, and enable it to rise to the challenges of the years ahead

Direct payments and Risk Premia: How fared Irish Cereal Producers Under the MacSharry Reforms?

The 1992 EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) MacSharry reforms reduced intervention prices for cereals and simultaneously introduced direct payments to producers. This paper estimating Irish cereal producers risk attitudes and associated premiums, comapares the level of the direct apyment with producers risk permia in order to soe whether the introduction of the reforms was implicitly welfare enhancing for the 1993-1998 time period

Direct payments and Risk Premia: How fared Irish Cereal Producers Under the MacSharry Reforms?

The 1992 EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) MacSharry reforms reduced intervention prices for cereals and simultaneously introduced direct payments to producers. This paper estimating Irish cereal producers risk attitudes and associated premiums, comapares the level of the direct apyment with producers risk permia in order to soe whether the introduction of the reforms was implicitly welfare enhancing for the 1993-1998 time period