Our staff publish peer-reviewed research in reputable and established economic journals from around the world. Here is a recent selection of such papers.
"Income Inequality in Ireland, 1987-2019"
Fiscal Studies | June 2024
Ireland has experienced rapid - if volatile - growth over the last three decades. While this performance looks less impressive when considered over a longer horizon and is better seen as belated convergence making up for lost time in the first 50 years of independence, this paper highlights an aspect of the Irish experience that does stand out as quite remarkable: how broad-based and inclusive growth in household disposable income was.
See more
"What Do Politicians Think of Technocratic Institutions? Attitudes in the European Parliament Towards the European Central Bank"
Journal of Common Market Studies | June 2024
Technocracy has come to be increasingly regarded as a threat to representative democracy. Significant attention has thus been recently devoted to exploring public preferences towards technocratic institutions. Elected policy-makers' attitudes have instead not been investigated as systematically. This article fills the gap by examining the politicians' views on central banks.
See more
"Housing prices, costs, and policy: The housing supply equation in Ireland since 1970"
Real Estate Economics | May 2024
This article examines how responsive new housing supply in Ireland has been to changes in housing prices and costs. To do this, the authors use data for Ireland and for Dublin from the 1970s to the 2020s, as well as county-level data from the 1990s. They find that - in line with economic theory - housing supply increases when prices go up or when costs go down. The responsiveness to costs is about twice that to prices: a 10% decrease in costs is associated with a 19% increase in supply, while a 10% increase in prices is associated with just a 9% increase in supply. They also examine whether the responsiveness of supply has changed over time but find little evidence of weaker supply responses in the 2010s, suggesting that high costs are holding back supply. Given the shortage of housing in Ireland, and already high sale and rental prices, the findings suggest lower costs is an important avenue for policymakers.
See more
"Long-Term Effects of Preschool Subsidies and Cash Transfers on Child Development: Evidence from Uganda"
AEA Papers and Proceedings | May 2024
Shortly before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, three-to-five-year-old children in Uganda were randomly offered a subsidy to attend full-day preschool for one year. A second treatment group received cash transfers that were at least as large as the cost of the preschool subsidy provided, while a third group received both. Children who attended preschool prior to the pandemic have better anthropometric outcomes three years later. The authors do not find persistent effects on their learning outcomes.
See more
"What We Can Learn When Impacts Fail to Replicate: Lessons from an Empowerment Programme for Young Women in Tanzania"
Journal of Development Studies | May 2024
This article evaluates the Empowerment and Livelihood for Adolescents programme that combines life and livelihood skills training with a safe space where young women can network and learn. While the same intervention was effective in raising adolescent girls' economic and social empowerment in Uganda, this randomised evaluation finds no programme impact on any economic, health, or social outcomes in Tanzania.
See more
"Manufacturing in Africa" in Handbook of African Economic Development
Handbook of African Economic Development | April 2024
Professor Carol Newman has published a chapter, "Manufacturing in Africa", in Handbook of African Economic Development edited by Pádraig Carmody and James T. Murphy, and published by Elgar Publishing.
See more
"Borrowing Constraints and Demand for Remedial Education: Evidence from Tanzania"
The Economic Journal | April 2024
This article examines a Tanzanian household's willingness to pay for a remedial education programme after using a cash transfer to relax their borrowing constraints. By investigating various household examples, it concludes that borrowing constraints limit access to educational programmes, and may increase inequality of educational attainment.
See more
"Telenovelas and attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community in Latin America"
Labour Economics | December 2023
This paper studies how exposure to soap operas with LGBTQ+ characters affects attitudes toward the LGBTQ+ community in Latin America and the Caribbean.
See more
"Intra-household Time Allocation: Evidence from the Post-socialist Countries"
Comparative Economic Studies | December 2023
This paper examines the division of household work in several post-socialist countries during their democratic transition period and compares them to advanced economies between 1994 and 2012.
See more
"Repayment Flexibility and Risk Taking: Experimental Evidence from Credit Contracts"
The Review of Economic Studies | November 2023
A widely held view is that small firms in developing countries are prevented from making profitable investments by lack of access to credit and insurance markets. One solution is to provide repayment flexibility in credit contracts. Repayment flexibility eases both the credit constraint, as it allows for increased spending during the start-up phase, and offers insurance, in case of fluctuations in income.
See more
"Historical roots of political extremism: The effects of Nazi occupation of Italy"
Journal of Comparative Economics | September 2023
This paper studies the impact of the Italian Civil War and Nazi occupation of Italy in 1943-45 on postwar political outcomes.
See more
"Competition and Innovation in the Financial Sector: Evidence from the Rise of FinTech Start-ups"
Journal of Financial Services Research | August 2023
This paper provides new evidence on the effects of entry on incumbents' incentives to innovate by examining the rise of FinTech innovations over the period 2000-2016.
See more
"Revisiting the size-productivity relationship with imperfect measures of production and plot size"
American Journal of Agricultural Economics | July 2023
This paper examines the sensitivity of empirical assessments of the relationship between agricultural productivity and land area to alternative measurement protocols.
See more
"Growing older and growing apart? Population age structure and trade"
Journal of Economic Studies | February 2023
This paper explores the empirical relationship between population age structure and bilateral trade.
See more
"Central bank communication and social media: From silence to Twitter"
Journal of Economic Surveys | February 2023
This paper discusses the evolution of central bank communication, focusing on recent efforts by central banks to engage with a wider audience via social media. The authors document the social media presence of major central banks and discuss how analysing Twitter content by and about monetary policy makers can inform the effectiveness of communication in influencing beliefs.
See more
"Population age structure and secular stagnation: Evidence from long run data"
The Journal of the Economics of Ageing | February 2023
A large literature has reopened the secular stagnation hypothesis, first proposed near the end of the Great Depression as a warning for anemic growth resulting from long run trends in population ageing. In this paper, the author explores the relationship between population age structure and growth in: investment, consumption and output, in a long run panel of advanced economies.
See more