BUDGET PERSPECTIVES 2021, PAPER 2, May 2020. THE POTENTIAL COSTS AND DISTRIBUTIONAL EFFECT OF COVID-19. MINIMUM WAGE POLICY IN IRELAND

I provide an overview of minimum wage policy in Ireland over the past 20 years, and survey the recent evidence on the economic impacts of a minimum wage. Drawing on this evidence, I analyse the potential implications of the recent Covid19 crisis on minimum wage employment in Ireland. The recent evidence shows that minimum wage increases in Ireland have not led to increased job loss among minimum wage workers, but have resulted in some reductions in hours worked among certain groups. Minimum wage increases have led to reductions in wage inequality and the minimum wage has been shown to be important in keeping wage inequality low during recessions. Recent estimates show that more than half of minimum wage employees in Ireland work in the retail, accommodation and food sectors. These sectors have experienced widespread business closures due to the Covid-19 crisis, suggesting that low-wage employees may be disproportionately impacted by job losses. Those who have lost their job may claim the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) of €350 per week. Minimum wage employees in retail or accommodation and food work, on average, 23 hours per week. This means that the PUP payment is 50 per cent higher than the gross weekly wage of the average minimum wage employee in these sectors. However, the PUP payment was an emergency short-term (12-week) measure, and it seems likely that it will be amended or tapered in coming weeks to address these types of anomalies

ESSENTIAL EMPLOYEES DURING THE COVID-19 CRISIS. ESRI SURVEY AND STATISTICAL REPORT SERIES NUMBER 85 May 2020

• In this report, we use Irish Labour Force Survey data to profile the characteristics of essential workers. We pay particular attention to the family structure, such as whether the employee has children and the age of those children. Given the closure of schools and crèches, this will provide insight into the potential challenges faced by those who are combining work with family responsibilities

WHO CAN WORK FROM HOME IN IRELAND? ESRI SURVEY AND STATISTICAL REPORT SERIES NUMBER 87 May 2020

• In this report, we use Irish Labour Force Survey data to profile the characteristics of essential workers. We pay particular attention to the family structure, such as whether the employee has children and the age of those children. Given the closure of schools and crèches, this will provide insight into the potential challenges faced by those who are combining work with family responsibilities

THE PREVALENCE AND EFFECT ON HOURS WORKED OF THE MINIMUM WAGE IN IRELAND. Research Series Number 93, December 2019 A SECTORAL AND REGIONAL ANALYSIS

This study examines the extent to which the profile of minimum wage (MW) employees, and the impacts of the 2018 increase in the national minimum wage rate, varies by sector and region in Ireland. The research highlights variations in the importance of MW employment across regions and sectors. It also highlights the potential importance of considering regional and sectoral issues in any process used to determine the appropriate MW rate

A STUDY OF MINIMUM WAGE EMPLOYMENT IN IRELAND: THE ROLE OF WORKER, HOUSEHOLD AND JOB CHARACTERISTICS. ESRI SURVEY AND STATISTICAL REPORT SERIES, November 2017

This study uses Irish data from the Survey of Income and Living Conditions (SILC) to examine the factors underlying differences in the relative risk of being in receipt of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) among groups with relatively high rates of exposure to NMW employment, such as females, young people and non-Irish nationals. The results for Ireland are then compared with the UK. The study attempts to identify the factors driving a higher propensity of minimum wage employment among specific risk groups. The research is interested in understanding the degree to which the likelihood of minimum wage employment is driven by factors such as personal characteristics (like education and experience), job conditions within particular occupations or factors related to household composition and caring responsibilities

AN EXAMINATION OF THE LABOUR MARKET TRANSITIONS OF MINIMUM WAGE WORKERS IN IRELAND. ESRI RESEARCH SERIES NUMBER 75 October 2018

A national minimum wage (NMW) was first introduced in Ireland in 2000, with an initial rate of €5.58 per hour.1 The rate was increased in subsequent years, so that by July 2007 the minimum wage stood at €8.65 per hour. However, from 2007 to 2015 there were no further increases in the NMW. Following recommendations from the Irish Low Pay Commission, which was established in 2015, the NMW was increased in January 2016 from €8.65 to €9.15 per hour, the first increase in nine years. It was further increased to €9.25 per hour in January 2017 and to €9.55 per hour in January 2018, the figure at which it currently stands. In 2016 a question was added to the Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS) which directly asks employees whether their hourly wage is equal to, above or below the NMW. According to this new measure, the incidence of minimum wage employment was 10.1 per cent in 2016 and 8.2 per cent in 2017.2 Previous work by Maître et al. (2017), investigating the characteristics of minimum wage workers in Ireland, found that women, non-Irish nationals, younger persons, people with lower levels of education and part-time workers were more likely to be on the minimum wage. In this study, we use this new measure of minimum wage employment in Ireland to assess the degree to which individuals in receipt of the NMW transition in and out of NMW employment over a period of three quarters in 2016 and 2017. The objective of the analysis is as follows: (a) to identify the labour market status and key characteristics of individuals moving out of NMW employment to higher pay; (b) to assess the extent to which NMW status is transitory and to identify the rate at which NMW employees transition to higher paid jobs; (c) to examine whether minimum wage employees are more likely to transition to unemployment or inactivity relative to higher paid workers

Essays on the Political Economy of Elections

Elected politicians work as agents on behalf of the citizens of an economy. Once elected they are responsible for shaping the future socioeconomic path of a country. Therefore understanding the determinants of electoral outcomes and the incentives faced by political candidates during the election period is key in understanding the efficacy of elections in selecting the best possi- ble candidates. A functional electoral system should act as a quality filter in which low quality candidates are "weeded out" and the highest quality candidates are successful. In reality electoral systems may not select and retain the best possible candidates. The presence of incumbency advantage may lead to a dysfunc- tional system with deleterious effects for welfare. Incumbent candidates may use officeholder benefits to improve their electoral prospects. For exam- ple, incumbents typically have access to free postage, printing and greater fundraising capabilities than challengers and may use these officeholder ben- efits to gain an unfair electoral advantage. As a result, the incumbent could win the election even if the challenger is of higher quality or high quality chal- lengers may decide not to contest the election in the first place. Incumbents are also in a position to announce their policy choices before challengers. As such the incumbent may enjoy a first mover advantage which may enable the incumbent to implement their own personal policy agenda which may not represent the majority of voters. The first chapter of this dissertation empirically estimates the magnitude of the incumbency advantage in Irish elections using a regression disconti- nuity design (RDD). Ireland provides an interesting setting for the study of incumbency advantage as the rate of reelection of Irish politicians is one of the highest in the world. Moreover its electoral system of proportional repre- sentation with a single transferable vote (PR-STV) creates strong incentives for incumbent candidates to cultivate a loyal personal following. In very close elections, where there is a narrow margin of victory, it is likely that bare winners are comparable in their unobservable characteristics to bare losers. Regression discontinuity design identifies the causal effect of incum- bency by comparing the subsequent electoral outcomes of bare winners and losers. I find that incumbency causes an eighteen percentage point increase in the probability that a candidate is successful in a subsequent election. In chapter two I study open seat and incumbent-challenger elections in a model of spatial electoral competition between two policy motivated can- didates. The candidates differ with regard to non-policy related characteris- tics which are desired by voters. These may include characteristics such as charisma, charm and intelligence - collectively referred to as valence charac- teristics. I find that incumbent candidates benefit from being first movers and this allows them to generate favourable post-election policy outcomes. Policy divergence between candidates is typically greater in the incumbent challenger election compared to an open seat contest. I also show that ideo- logical shirking occurs once a candidate's valence exceeds a certain threshold as the candidate pursues her own ideology even if this is not representative of the majority of voters. In chapter three I examine the extent to which electoral selection based on candidate quality alone can account for the pattern of reelection rates in the U.S. Senate. In order to attain incumbency status a candidate has to first win an election. Therefore it is likely that incumbent candidates are of high quality due to political selection and get reelected with a high probability. As such high reelection rates are not definitive evidence of a poorly functioning electoral system. The counterfactual simulation in which candidate quality is the sole determinant of electoral success may provide a simple benchmark for the reelection rate in the absence of officeholder benefits. The simulation delivers a reelection rate which is almost identical to the observed rate prior to 1980, at around 78 percent. In the later sub- sample, quality-based selection generates a reelection rate which is seven percentage points lower than observed. The divergence in the reelection rates in the later sub-sample is consistent with the findings of vote-margin studies that indicate rising incumbency advantage due to officeholder benefits

Denis Kilbride M.P. 1848-1924

The purpose of this study is to give an account of the life and times of Denis KilBride in as balanced a fashion as possible. KilBride had a long and varied career and lived to be seventy-six years of age. The study concentrates on his life and times, which included the Luggacurren evictions of which he played a major part, his path to political life and his representation of three constituencies, south Kerry, north Galway and south Kildare for a period of thirty-one years. As a result of the prolonged depression in agriculture, KilBride, an educated and politically active gentlemen tenant farmer with his own subtenants and labourers, in an era of rising expectations, was to experience insurmountable financial difficulties, which culminated in his eventual eviction from an 868 acre farm on the Lansdowne estate at Wood House, Luggacurren. The Luggacurren evictions took place during the turbulent agrarian agitation years of the plan of campaign from cl 886- 1906

Outcasts On The Inside? A Case Study Of The Career Aspirations And Experiences Of Widening Participation Students From A Merseyside College Of Higher Education

Firstly, the study is of adult widening participation students in Merseyside, England. Nationally, the economic contribution made by higher education to the economy and the provision of a skilled, adaptable workforce, is a major topic of concern, and even more so in regions such as Merseyside in the North West of England, which have experienced long-term structural economic problems and recession (LSC, 2003). Consequently, it is likely that appeals to the vocational benefits of higher education are less likely to be accepted by widening participation students in Merseyside, especially if their 'horizons of action' are local rather than cosmopolitan. Social, structural and economic factors, therefore, are considered to be an important context to this thesis. Secondly, the research is unique in that it included a number of tracer interviews with widening participation students six months after their graduation. By doing this, the research sought to utilise their subsequent vantage point to gain an understanding of their perspectives upon work, higher education and the role and potential of university-based careers education. This was particularly central to me as the researcher as I currently am in charge of careers education and guidance at Liverpool Hope University College, the Merseyside Institution of Higher Education where the research was carried out. Thirdly, the research sought to critically examine the model of higher education student relationships to the economy proposed by Brown and Scase (1994). 1 wanted to find out if their six category model of economy-student relationships, which was developed in the early 1990s with 18-21 year old students in traditional higher education replicated, and resonated with, the points of view of mature students in a post 1992 University College sector in a depressed part of the economy. Whilst it was likely that there would be similarities, it was also considered possible that differences, were likely as a result of the regional context, the type of student and the positioning of the Institution within the hierarchy of higher education (Ball et al., 2002). It was considered highly likely that the findings will have major implications for careers education in higher education. We have a duty to ensure that the careers service is relevant to the needs of all Liverpool Hope University College students, regardless of social, cultural or academic backgrounds

ESTIMATING THE EFFECT OF AN INCREASE IN THE MINIMUM WAGE ON HOURS WORKED AND EMPLOYMENT IN IRELAND. ESRI SURVEY AND STATISTICAL REPORT SERIES, April 2018

Using data from the Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS) for the years 2015 and 2016, we estimate the effect of the increase in the minimum wage on both the hours worked and likelihood of job loss among minimum wage workers using a difference-in-differences estimator. We find that the increase in the minimum wage had a negative and statistically significant impact on the hours worked of low paid workers, with a weekly reduction of approximately one hour. We split the sample based on the type of contract, temporary or permanent, and find a relatively large impact for temporary workers in the order of 3.5 hours per week. However, further examination of the data reveals that at least some of the observed effect may be attributed to an increase in voluntary PT employment among minimum wage workers, suggesting that the decline in average hours among the treatment group may have been driven, at least to some extent, by an increase in the incentive to work part-time following the rate rise. Our results are robust to both placebo tests for years where no change in the MW rate occurred and various alternative specifications. We do not find evidence that the increase in the minimum wage led to a rise in the rate of job loss among minimum wage workers