Ronan Lyons | Personal Website
Ronan Lyons | Personal Website

great recession

What a difference three years makes: How the OECD’s public and private sectors have fared

Last month, the OECD published its latest Economic Outlook, which downgraded expectations for rich-country growth this year. This post digs a little deeper into the OECD database and compares how the private and public sectors have changed over the past three years. It finds that the private sector is paying more to get less in most countries – except the US, Japan and Ireland. It also finds an effective stimulus in the OECD of about 6% of GDP in 2010, compared to 2007. This is largest and – as spending-led – perhaps least sustainable in Ireland and in Denmark. Read more

How much trade has been lost in the Great Recession?

This post examines the latest OECD data, to see which economies have been most affected by “lost trade” during the Great Recession, especially as it is being rewritten in the light of eurozone/PIIGS crisis. It turns out that the nature of the exporting sector, and not the government’s finances, has determined a country’s trading success since 2008, with drug-exporting Ireland and Switzerland among the least affected, while Finland (ICT) and Japan (cars) find themselves among the most affected. Read more