Ronan Lyons | Personal Website
Ronan Lyons | Personal Website

Research

My academic research has three main areas of focus. One is the modern Irish housing market, including the determinants of sale and rental prices (and the relationship between the two) at the level of the market and the level of the individual property. Some of my published work in this area examines the relationship between credit conditions and housing market outcomes and, as part of the I-HAVE and CONSEED projects, how specific amenities, such as energy efficiency, flood risk or employment by foreign-owned firms, affect the price of homes. A second area of research focus is housing markets over the long run. While housing has for generations been both one of the main services we spend our incomes on, and the main asset in the typical household’s portfolio, we know very little about the path of housing prices, on a like-for-like basis, over longer time-spans. I am working on new housing price indices, for Ireland, the US (with generous funding from the Lincoln Institute and the NSF) and Canada, typically from the late 19th century, with a view to better understanding how housing markets work, the true path of housing prices over the long run, and what that means for our understanding of growth in prices, living standards and wealth. My final area of research focus is Irish economic history and, since 2022, I have been an Associate Director of the Centre for Economics, Policy & History (CEPH) and leading its Irish Data Compendium workstream. My work on Irish economic history is a broader canvas and includes analysis of Irish equity prices since the early 19th century and the impact on Ireland’s economic development of various factors, including the Act of Union, the introduction of rail, subsidised housing for agricultural labourers, and the Great Depression and Anglo-Irish Trade War.

Below is a list of articles published in peer-reviewed journals, other publications (in particular book chapters) and an overview of my work-in-progress. My academic CV is available here and you can also check out my profile on RePEc, ORCID and Google Scholar.

Working Papers

Published articles

Books and book chapters

  • “Housing Market: Supply, Pricing and Servicing Issues”. In John O’Hagan and Francis O’Toole (eds), The Economy of Ireland – Policy & Performance (13th and 14th editions). London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2017 and 2021. Draft version here.
  • “Housing and Austerity: A Two-Way Street”. In Emma Heffernan, John McHale and Dr Niamh Moore-Cherry (eds), Debating Austerity in Ireland. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2017. Draft version here.
  • “The spread of rents in Ireland, over time and space,” in Lorcan Sirr (ed), Renting in Ireland. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration, 2014. Draft version here.
  • “Inside a Bubble and Crash – Evidence from the Valuation of Amenities”, in Morten Balling (ed), Property Prices and Real Estate Financing in a Turbulent World. Vienna: SUERF/Austrian National Bank, 2013. Working paper version here.
  • Next Generation Ireland, with Edward Burke (editors), Dublin: Blackhall Press (now Orpen Press), 2011.
  • “Towards Perfect Information: The Case of the Housing Market”, in Stephen Kinsella & Anthony Leddin (eds.), Understanding Ireland’s Economic Crisis: Prospects for Recovery. Dublin: Blackhall Press (now Orpen Press), 2010.

Earlier-stage work

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