while this is certainly a point that needs to be made, on the subject of tertiary education I would question the value of said tertiary qualifications in many cases.
From an outside observation, I’d take the view that the Irish population has a slightly skewed view of tertiary education. We have been training quite a few solicitors and architects, for example, and not so many scientists and technologists. This is because much interest in our tertiary education system is driven by perceptions as to where the money lies. So the value of the amount of tertiary education lies in the devil of the detail which you don’t and maybe can’t easily provide.
On the subject of services exports versus manufacturing exports, I am looking for equivalent figures for the UK which I can’t exactly find. However, I can see that they are running a significant trade surplus in services but significant deficit in manufacturing. Is it possible to get comparative figures for the UK – I cannot – at this point – locate them on the UK’s statistics website
Ronan, is your favourite song Ian Dury and the Blockheads “Reasons to be cheerful”? Fair play to you for adding some balance to the overwhelming gloom. One other benefit of the Celtic Tiger, I would suggest, is that our traditional poverty of ambition has been replaced by the knowledge that we can achieve great things economically (okay let’s not put all the eggs in one basket next time, though).
@Jagdip
Thanks – there are probably other, more difficult to measure, social benefits such as greater openness to migration that we will also come to recognise in time.
@Treasa
Good point on tertiary education. Ireland only gets a “C” from the Conference Board in terms of science graduates per capita. Even at a more fundamental level, are the science graduates we produce good enough? Again, that should not take away from the overall progress that has been made in getting people into tertiary education.
On the services export point, the UK is a major services exporter… but it’s a question of proportions. The USA and the UK are the world’s biggest service exporters. However, despite its small size, Ireland is among the top 10 service exporters in the world! Will see if I can find full stats later today.
@Stephen Ah, I didn’t know about that one! Good call. Re the debt point, most of what’s listed above was not really debt fuelled, the good hard work was done in the 1990s. Granted things might have been a bit slower if we’d been more sensible throughout the 2000s but the trajectory was there.
@rubensni That’s a very good point. While it’s not as black and white as cutting off in 2002, the overall thrust of economic growth had definitely switched from net exports to government/building. Already in 2009, there was huge swing back to net exports (which added 3 points to growth… so can you imagine what would have happened our GDP/GNP last year if we actually HAD been hit by the global recession?!)
kevin denny
,
The problem, as ever, is knowing the counterfactual. Some of these things might have happened anyway & left us with less pain so attributing these things to the CT is something of a leap.
By “investment in education” do you mean spending on education? Not the same at all but governments like to categorize consumption as investment as it sounds better and it removes the requirement for any obvious, immediate benefit. In the case of education, do we know that this extra spending has translated into improved outcomes? I’m sure some of it has (I’m thinking of my salary, perhaps Stephen’s too) but lowering class sizes across the board, for example, is a great way to waste money.
Diarmuid
,
Diversity in people and food! and choice..choice of partner ;)…and where to go eat or too have a cappucino or a good old cup of tea..
“The effect of class size on students’ performance is – as expected – negative; students do worse in big classes. Namely, a given student receives lower marks in courses with larger classes, everything else equal.”
[…] the Celtic Tiger ever do for us…? Interesting article by economist Ronan Lyons on his blog. What has the Celtic Tiger ever done for us? | Ronan Lyons Read it for yourselves. My take on this is that we really need to have a bit of perspective and […]
joe
,
hospital waiting lists, trolleys, ward closures, misdiagnosis, potholes, overcrowded prisons, whitecollar crime avoidance, useless tribunals, prison sentances for menial offences, graduates doing minimum wage jobs, greater divide between rish and poor, ghost estates, importation of waste, shell to sea, bertie ahern, lisbon (where are those jobs?)….. do you think i should stop now ?
Michqel
,
@Joe, in other European countries like France for example graduates must do unpaid work. The gap between rich and poor is not very pronounced. In Germany an engineer like myself earns about the same as I do in Ireland, but an unemployed person gets put to work for a Euro an hour. On that point there is no minimum wage in other wealthy European countries such as Germany, ours is the second highest. Our dole is multiples of the British job seekers allowance, and in Ireland nobody expects you to show up with a list of jobs you applied for.
We are a tough crowd of people to please, we have one of the lowest tax burdens in Europe but we want to pay less and also have better public services.
[…] Also hears an article by Ronan Lyons which states that Austria and France seem to get by with just over half the nurses to population ratio than Ireland. What has the Celtic Tiger ever done for us? | Ronan Lyons […]
[…] To address this point of view, I can only recommend an article written by Irish economist Ronan Lyons entitled What has the Celtic Tiger ever done for us? […]
Paul,
Have you looked around the rest of this blog? I think you could hardly describe me as an apologist for the good times! The point of this article, however, was that while it’s probably incredibly unfashionable to admit that there is some aspect of a positive legacy of Ireland’s Celtic Tiger, it is undeniably true.
So yes, I’m still as cheerful as I was. Although I think you might have miscalculated how cheerful I was to begin with.
Thanks for the comment,
[…] better place to live than any of us thought possible in 1996, 1986 or indeed any previous decade. The Celtic Tiger was not a mirage. And we have a very real economy that, with a good bit of hard work and with a fundamental […]
[…] better place to live than any of us thought possible in 1996, 1986 or indeed any previous decade. The Celtic Tiger was not a mirage. And we have a very real economy that, with a good bit of hard work and with a fundamental […]
[…] place to live than any of us thought possible in 1996, 1986 or indeed any previous decade. The Celtic Tiger was not a mirage. And we have a very real economy that, with a good bit of hard work and with a fundamental […]
[…] better place to live than any of us thought possible in 1996, 1986 or indeed any previous decade. The Celtic Tiger was not a mirage. And we have a very real economy that, with a good bit of hard work and with a fundamental […]
Treasa ,
Hi Ronan,
while this is certainly a point that needs to be made, on the subject of tertiary education I would question the value of said tertiary qualifications in many cases.
From an outside observation, I’d take the view that the Irish population has a slightly skewed view of tertiary education. We have been training quite a few solicitors and architects, for example, and not so many scientists and technologists. This is because much interest in our tertiary education system is driven by perceptions as to where the money lies. So the value of the amount of tertiary education lies in the devil of the detail which you don’t and maybe can’t easily provide.
On the subject of services exports versus manufacturing exports, I am looking for equivalent figures for the UK which I can’t exactly find. However, I can see that they are running a significant trade surplus in services but significant deficit in manufacturing. Is it possible to get comparative figures for the UK – I cannot – at this point – locate them on the UK’s statistics website
Jagdip Singh ,
Ronan, is your favourite song Ian Dury and the Blockheads “Reasons to be cheerful”? Fair play to you for adding some balance to the overwhelming gloom. One other benefit of the Celtic Tiger, I would suggest, is that our traditional poverty of ambition has been replaced by the knowledge that we can achieve great things economically (okay let’s not put all the eggs in one basket next time, though).
Ronan Lyons ,
@Jagdip
Thanks – there are probably other, more difficult to measure, social benefits such as greater openness to migration that we will also come to recognise in time.
@Treasa
Good point on tertiary education. Ireland only gets a “C” from the Conference Board in terms of science graduates per capita. Even at a more fundamental level, are the science graduates we produce good enough? Again, that should not take away from the overall progress that has been made in getting people into tertiary education.
On the services export point, the UK is a major services exporter… but it’s a question of proportions. The USA and the UK are the world’s biggest service exporters. However, despite its small size, Ireland is among the top 10 service exporters in the world! Will see if I can find full stats later today.
Thanks for the comments,
Ronan.
Stephen.kinsella@gma ,
Splitter!
Have a read of Michael O’Sulivan’s new book ‘What did we do right?’, it’s really an excellent piece along the same lines as your post: http://www.blackhallpublishing.com/index.php/what-did-we-do-right.html
Stephen.kinsella@gma ,
Also, could it be that you are highlighting one side of the same coin Constantin is looking in his debt series? Much of this growth was debt-fueled, after all: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2010/05/economics-03052010-world-debt-wish-6.html
rubensni ,
I was always of the opinion that the Celtic Tiger period ended in 2002. By comparison the 2003-07 cycle was a splurge.
Ronan Lyons ,
@Stephen Ah, I didn’t know about that one! Good call. Re the debt point, most of what’s listed above was not really debt fuelled, the good hard work was done in the 1990s. Granted things might have been a bit slower if we’d been more sensible throughout the 2000s but the trajectory was there.
@rubensni That’s a very good point. While it’s not as black and white as cutting off in 2002, the overall thrust of economic growth had definitely switched from net exports to government/building. Already in 2009, there was huge swing back to net exports (which added 3 points to growth… so can you imagine what would have happened our GDP/GNP last year if we actually HAD been hit by the global recession?!)
kevin denny ,
The problem, as ever, is knowing the counterfactual. Some of these things might have happened anyway & left us with less pain so attributing these things to the CT is something of a leap.
By “investment in education” do you mean spending on education? Not the same at all but governments like to categorize consumption as investment as it sounds better and it removes the requirement for any obvious, immediate benefit. In the case of education, do we know that this extra spending has translated into improved outcomes? I’m sure some of it has (I’m thinking of my salary, perhaps Stephen’s too) but lowering class sizes across the board, for example, is a great way to waste money.
Diarmuid ,
Diversity in people and food! and choice..choice of partner ;)…and where to go eat or too have a cappucino or a good old cup of tea..
Joe Carroll ,
Ronan, your point about the impact of class size is wrong or at least the evidence suggests this, see:
http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/4471
An interesting article;
“The effect of class size on students’ performance is – as expected – negative; students do worse in big classes. Namely, a given student receives lower marks in courses with larger classes, everything else equal.”
What did the Celtic Tiger ever do for us...? ,
[…] the Celtic Tiger ever do for us…? Interesting article by economist Ronan Lyons on his blog. What has the Celtic Tiger ever done for us? | Ronan Lyons Read it for yourselves. My take on this is that we really need to have a bit of perspective and […]
joe ,
hospital waiting lists, trolleys, ward closures, misdiagnosis, potholes, overcrowded prisons, whitecollar crime avoidance, useless tribunals, prison sentances for menial offences, graduates doing minimum wage jobs, greater divide between rish and poor, ghost estates, importation of waste, shell to sea, bertie ahern, lisbon (where are those jobs?)….. do you think i should stop now ?
Michqel ,
@Joe, in other European countries like France for example graduates must do unpaid work. The gap between rich and poor is not very pronounced. In Germany an engineer like myself earns about the same as I do in Ireland, but an unemployed person gets put to work for a Euro an hour. On that point there is no minimum wage in other wealthy European countries such as Germany, ours is the second highest. Our dole is multiples of the British job seekers allowance, and in Ireland nobody expects you to show up with a list of jobs you applied for.
We are a tough crowd of people to please, we have one of the lowest tax burdens in Europe but we want to pay less and also have better public services.
Harney warns of 'substantial and enormous' health cutbacks - Page 3 ,
[…] Also hears an article by Ronan Lyons which states that Austria and France seem to get by with just over half the nurses to population ratio than Ireland. What has the Celtic Tiger ever done for us? | Ronan Lyons […]
Celtic Tiger only benefited the rich | David McManus ,
[…] To address this point of view, I can only recommend an article written by Irish economist Ronan Lyons entitled What has the Celtic Tiger ever done for us? […]
Paul Doolan ,
Well Ronan,now that the country is bankrupt, are you still so cheerful?
Ronan Lyons ,
Paul,
Have you looked around the rest of this blog? I think you could hardly describe me as an apologist for the good times! The point of this article, however, was that while it’s probably incredibly unfashionable to admit that there is some aspect of a positive legacy of Ireland’s Celtic Tiger, it is undeniably true.
So yes, I’m still as cheerful as I was. Although I think you might have miscalculated how cheerful I was to begin with.
Thanks for the comment,
Ronan.
Thinking the Unthinkable | The Big Picture ,
[…] better place to live than any of us thought possible in 1996, 1986 or indeed any previous decade. The Celtic Tiger was not a mirage. And we have a very real economy that, with a good bit of hard work and with a fundamental […]
Thinking the Unthinkable « Föhrenbergkreis Finanzwirtschaft ,
[…] better place to live than any of us thought possible in 1996, 1986 or indeed any previous decade. The Celtic Tiger was not a mirage. And we have a very real economy that, with a good bit of hard work and with a fundamental […]
Thinking the Unthinkable | Howestreet ,
[…] place to live than any of us thought possible in 1996, 1986 or indeed any previous decade. The Celtic Tiger was not a mirage. And we have a very real economy that, with a good bit of hard work and with a fundamental […]
Thinking the Unthinkable ,
[…] better place to live than any of us thought possible in 1996, 1986 or indeed any previous decade. The Celtic Tiger was not a mirage. And we have a very real economy that, with a good bit of hard work and with a fundamental […]