Household income

Charles Babbage

Why is Ireland's household consumption relatively low when compared to national income? Repayment of debt is one possibility, is it the case that the debtr was borrowed for "investment" in housing, so consumption wasn't high on 2007 either?

Comparing with the UK (these charts are not quite comparable, but the gap is obvious all the same)

andrew

Where'd you get the data? I feel like maybe that's not an apples-to-apples comparison, possibly, and that 'Gross National Disposable Income per capita' might be a bit better than GNI per capita.

Geuze

GDP per capita in Irl is a poor measure of living standards, due to loads of issues.

MNC, tax inversions, contract manufacturing, etc.,

Even GNP per capita is also affected.

A better measure is AIC, which is much lower.

So, yes, we are poorer than we think.

andrew

Geuze wrote: »

GDP per capita in Irl is a poor measure of living standards, due to loads of issues.

MNC, tax inversions, contract manufacturing, etc.,

Even GNP per capita is also affected.

A better measure is AIC, which is much lower.

So, yes, we are poorer than we think.

Aic?

Geuze

Actual Individual Consumption.

Search Eurostat for it.

I'm on phone, I'll post more later.

Geuze

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/GDP_per_capita,_consumption_per_capita_and_price_level_indices

Geuze

Geuze

Charles Babbage

Just returning to this thread, with 2015 data


IN 2015 Ireland's GDP increased markedly, yet its AAC went down (relative to other Euro countries). This does not make sense to me, unemployment fell, new car sales and other retail sales rose and many people started getting pay rises again. The government stopped cutting and taking money out of the economy. So why did the gap increase further?

In the UK AIC is higher than GDP. Does this reflect their balance of payments deficit and can this continue in current circumstances?

Charles Babbage

Of course the 2015 data is now all over the place
But the point remains, in 2015 there was real domestic economic activity, but this does not seem to be reflected in the AIC figures above.

andrew

I suppose it's highlighting the fact that, even before 2015, Irish GNP and GDP figures really weren't a good measure of real domestic activity. So the question is more 'why is GDP/GNP so high' not 'why is AIC so low.' This graph is relevant, and also this article about the GDP figures graph is relevant, and also this article about the GDP figures

Charles Babbage

Andrew wrote:

I suppose it's highlighting the fact that, even before 2015, Irish GNP and GDP figures really weren't a good measure of real domestic activity. So the question is more 'why is GDP/GNP so high' not 'why is AIC so low.

There is no doubt that GDP is nonsense and now it seems that GNP is going that way also. My point in relation to 2015 was "why was AIC not up" given that the real Irish economy was (if not by as much as the statistical Irish economy). I suppose in the context of such an unprecedented revision of GDP that AIC might be moved up a few percent in the aftermath, which would reflect the genuine improvement.

It just means that in forums such as this, that posting international tables is of limited value.