The Celtic Tiger In Historical And International Perspective

When Economic Development was published in 1958, Ireland was a growth failure but thirty years later it became the Celtic Tiger. This paper places this remarkable development in the context of long-run economic growth in Western Europe and establishes the distinctive features of Irish experience and policy. This enables an assessment of the diagnosis and policy proposals that Whitaker provided fifty years ago. The central roles in the Celtic Tiger of foreign direct investment, ICT production, and an elastic labour supply are highlighted while the importance of globalization and the abandonment of misguided autarchic policies is made clear.

The Contribution of New Technology to Economic Growth: Lessons from Economic History

This paper reviews the analysis of technological change by cliometricians. It focuses on lessons about total factor productivity (TFP) from growth accounting and on aspects of social capability that are conducive to the effective assimilation of new technology. Key messages are that when TFP growth is very rapid this typically involves reductions in inefficiency not just technological advance and that even really important new technologies have small initial effects on aggregate productivity. Incentive structures matter greatly for the adoption of new technology but social capability is not independent of the technological epoch as the ICT era has emphasized to Europeans.economic growth; growth accounting; social capability; technological change

Explaining the First Industrial Revolution: Two Views

This review essay looks at the recent books on the British Industrial Revolution by Robert Allen and Joel Mokyr. Both writers seek to explain Britain’s primacy. This paper offers a critical but sympathetic account of the main arguments of the two authors considering both the economic logic and the empirical validity of their rival claims. In each case, the ideas are promising but the evidence base seems in need of further support. It may be that eventually these explanations for British economic leadership at the turn of the nineteenth century are recognized as complementary rather than competing.

Productivity growth in the Industrial Revolution: a new growth accounting perspective

The issue of why productivity growth during the British industrial revolution was slow despite the arrival of famous inventions is revisited using a growth accounting methodology based on an endogenous innovation model and the perspective of recent literature on general purpose technologies. The results show that steam had a relatively small and long-delayed impact on productivity growth when benchmarked against later technologies such as electricity or ICT. Even so, technological change including embodiment effects accounted entirely for the acceleration in labor productivity growth that allowed the economy to withstand rapid population growth without a decline in living standards.

Geography and Intra-National Home Bias: U.S. Domestic Trade in 1949 and 2007

This article examines home bias in U.S. domestic trade in 1949 and 2007. We use a unique data set of 1949 carload waybill statistics produced by the Interstate Commerce Commission, and 2007 Commodity Flow Survey data. The results show that home bias was considerably smaller in 1949 than in 2007 and that home bias in 1949 was even negative for several commodities. We argue that the difference between the geographical distribution of the manufacturing activities in 1949 and that of 2007 is an important factor explaining the differences in the magnitudes of home-bias estimates in those years

Western Europe’s growth prospects : an historical perspective

This paper surveys the recent history of Western European growth. It concludes that this experience has been disappointing and that further reforms are desirable in many countries. The requirement for reform comes both from achieving ‘close-to-frontier’ status and from the opportunities provided by the new technological era. The paper goes on to consider the effects that the current crisis may have on medium-term growth rates. The lesson from the 1930s is that, if the current crisis leads to a similarly bad downturn, the policy reaction in terms of greater state intervention will not be conducive to improved growth prospects

What does the 1930s’ experience tell us about the future of the Eurozone?

If the Eurozone follows the precedent of the 1930s, it will not survive. The attractions of escaping from the gold standard then were massive and they point to a strategy of devalue and default for today’s crisis countries. A fully-federal Europe with a banking union and a fiscal union is the best solution to this problem but is politically infeasible. However, it may be possible to underpin the Euro by a ‘Bretton-Woods compromise’ that accepts a retreat from some aspects of deep economic integration since exit entails new risks of financial crisis that were not present eighty years ago

Getting creative in everyday life: Investigating arts and crafts hobbyists' information behavior

While there has been increasing interest in how creative professionals find information to drive creative outputs, previous information behavior research has largely ignored how arts and crafts hobbyists look for information sources in their everyday lives. To fill this literature gap, we conducted interviews and observations with arts and crafts hobbyists to find out how they conceive potential DIY projects. The findings highlight three themes: the dearth of human sources, the prevalence of domain-specific information, and the use of self-curated information. In addition to empirical results, this work also broadens the understanding of information behavior in an arts and crafts context by studying populations beyond professional artists

The Marshall Plan: A Reality Check

This paper surveys the literature on the Marshall Plan which was designed to help the reconstruction of Europe after World War II. A basic description of how the Marshall Plan was implemented is provided but the focal point is a consideration of the impact of American aid on European growth. It is concluded that the direct effects were positive but modest. The indirect effects working through induced policy changes may have been larger. If so, the Marshall Plan may be thought of as a successful structural adjustment program of the kind advocated by believers in the Washington Consensus.Aid; Economic Growth; Marshall Plan; Structural Adjustment Program