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Annual Competitiveness report

  • 08-01-2009 3:57pm
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,208 ✭✭✭


    The Annual Competitiveness report was published this afternoon. Find it here. Some early thoughts here.


Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,452 ✭✭✭Time Magazine


    Who doesn't love Richard Tol? "I did tell them."


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭gurramok


    And just look at where most of the jobs were created in the 'boom' since 2000, anyone want to count how many were sustainable? :D

    And we're in debt(private) at €37k per head(not me :D), numero uno by a mile in the Eurozone!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,609 ✭✭✭Flamed Diving


    Who doesn't love Richard Tol? "I did tell them."

    Isn't that the same guy who did a list of Ireland's top economists, and came out on top?
    :D


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,452 ✭✭✭Time Magazine


    Isn't that the same guy who did a list of Ireland's top economists, and came out on top?
    :D

    I believe it's an on-going joke in the ESRI to refer exclusively to the "Top Irish Economists" rather than the "Top Economists in Ireland" :)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,208 ✭✭✭Économiste Monétaire


    Well, his is a Nobel laureate, after all :D I'd say he was dismayed at the nuclear energy proposal...


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,452 ✭✭✭Time Magazine


    Karl lobs in with some good input:
    Thanks Alan for the link to the report which looks interesting.

    That said, like many economists, I always get a bit queasy about policy discussions revolving around the somewhat fuzzy concept of “competitiveness”. It may be natural to think about businesses as competing with each other, it’s less useful to think about economies competing with each other. I’m reminded that Paul Krugman once denounced the idea of competitiveness as “a dangerous obsession”! See http://www.pkarchive.org/global/pop.html

    In an Irish context, it’s useful to keep in mind that competitiveness is not a goal in and of itself. Much of the erosion of cost competitiveness documented in the report came from a rise in real wages which was a good thing for ordinary Irish people.

    One can create a highly “competitive” business sector by having low real wages and no regulatory protection for workers. But I doubt if that’s what the majority of Irish people want. Ultimately, underlying apparently simple discussions about improving competitiveness discussions, there are usually some tricky distributional issues.

    As for my views on the matter of competitiveness: the primary policy tool we can use to improve competitiveness is ensuring strong competition in many sectors of the economy. Unfortunately the government aren't so hot on that idea.

    Incidentally, having read a Fine Gael TD claim on record that the reason nobody in Meath could get a taxi was because the market was over-supplied, I don't think the opposition are great on that horse either.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,609 ✭✭✭Flamed Diving


    What do people make of Krugman's assertion that countries seeking to compete, as if they were corporations, is a waste of time. And that countries should simply focus on productivity?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 695 ✭✭✭DaSilva


    As for my views on the matter of competitiveness: the primary policy tool we can use to improve competitiveness is ensuring strong competition in many sectors of the economy. Unfortunately the government aren't so hot on that idea.

    What?

    This is how I understood your "views on the matter".

    Ireland's competitiveness can be improved, by improving Ireland's competitiveness.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,208 ✭✭✭Économiste Monétaire


    You appear to be confusing competition and competitiveness. Competitiveness, i.e. our cost base relative to other countries. Competition, i.e. the degree to which a given number of firms, in an industry, strive to achieve the same goal (that goal being: the effort of two or more parties acting independently to secure the business of a third party by offering the most favourable terms). The hope is that, with more competition, we can avoid price rises. Thus, from a greater degree of competition we hope to achieve a higher level of competitiveness in price, efficiency and innovation.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 695 ✭✭✭DaSilva


    You appear to be confusing competition and competitiveness. Competitiveness, i.e. our cost base relative to other countries. Competition, i.e. the degree to which a given number of firms, in an industry, strive to achieve the same goal (that goal being: the effort of two or more parties acting independently to secure the business of a third party by offering the most favourable terms). The hope is that, with more competition, we can avoid price rises. Thus, from a greater degree of competition we hope to achieve a higher level of competitiveness in price, efficiency and innovation.

    So you aren't saying:
    "Ireland's competitiveness can be improved, by improving Ireland's competitiveness."

    You are saying:
    Ireland's competitiveness can be improved, by having more competition.

    ?


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,208 ✭✭✭Économiste Monétaire


    Well, I can't speak for The Economist, but I believe that's, on a basic level, what he was saying. Moving from imperfect markets, to a greater degree of competition.


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