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Research Publications by Subject Area
My research over the past 20 years has been primarily in applied
microeconomic analysis. Over that period, the topics have spanned four major
areas: (1) foreign direct investment and international capital mobility; (2)
Irish economic development policy; (3) Irish labour market and taxation policy;
(4) the impact of research and development activity on company growth. What
these research interests share is a strong relevance to the major issues of
debate in western economies, where government policy may have a role in
intervening in the process of change.
My research in this area has involved theoretical, empirical and policy
analysis. Since the 1970s there has been a phenomenal growth in the scale of
foreign direct investment world-wide, and Ireland's success in this regard is
now seen as a benchmark for other countries and regions in Europe. Papers
associated with this research have been published in internationally edited
books and journals as well as in Irish books and journals. They include:
Theoretical Papers
- 'Corporate Income Tax,
Investment Grants and the Cost of Capital', Journal of Public
Economics, Vol. 17, 1982, pp. 103-110.
- 'Two-Way Capital
Flows: Cross Hauling in a Model of Foreign Investment', Journal
of International Economics, Vol. 14, 1983, pp. 357-366 (with R.W.
Jones and J.P. Neary).
- 'Trade Policies and
the Spatial Distribution of Development: A Two-Sector Analysis', International
Regional Science Review, Vol. 8, 1983, pp. 47-58. (Abstracted in Sage
Urban Studies Abstracts, 1984, p. 119.)
- 'Spatial Bias and the
Location of Footloose Industry: A Simple Regional Model', Canadian
Journal of Economics, Vol. 20, 1987, pp. 506-518.
- 'International Capital
Mobility, Shadow Prices and the Cost of Protection', International
Economic Review, Vol. 29, No. 4, 1988, pp. 571-585 (with J.P.
Neary).
- 'International Capital
Mobility and the Dutch Disease' in Henryk Kierzkowski (ed.): Protection
and Competition in International Trade: Essays in Honour of W.M. Corden,
Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 1987, pp. 86-98 (with R.W. Jones and J.P. Neary).
- 'Appraising the
Options for International Trade in Services', Oxford Economic
Papers, Vol. 42., No. 4, 1990, pp. 672-687 (with R.W. Jones).
- 'Internationalization
of Services: Conceptual and Empirical Issues' in P. Buiges, F.
Ilzkovitz, J.-F. Lebrum and A. Sapir (eds.): Market Services and
European Integration: the Challenges for the 1990s, Luxembourg,
European Commission European Economy - Social Europe Series
No. 3), 1993, pp.109-24.
Empirical and Policy Research
- 'The Performance of
Foreign-Owned Industry in Ireland, 1973-89', in A. Foley and D.
McAleese (eds): Overseas Industry in Ireland, Dublin: Gill
and Macmillan, 1991, pp. 65-81 (with Aebhric McGibney).
- 'Aspects of Foreign
Direct Investment in Irish Manufacturing since 1973: Policy and
Performance', Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry
Society of Ireland. Vol. XXVII. Part IV. 1996. pp. 1-51 (with H.
Görg).
- 'The Impact of Foreign
Direct Investment on Sectoral Adjustment in the Irish Economy', National
Institute Economic Review, 1997, No. 160, pp. 76-86 (with H.
Görg).
- 'Irish FDI Policy and
Investment from the EU'. In: Barrell, Ray and Nigel Pain (eds): Investment,
Innovation and the Diffusion of Technology in Europe. Cambridge
University Press. 1998. (with H. Görg ), pp 44-67.
- 'US Investment in EU
Member Countries: The Internal Market and Sectoral Specialisation', Journal
of Common Market Studies, Vol. 37, No. 2, June 1999, pp. 333-348
(with H. Görg).
- 'European Integration
and Peripherality: Lessons from the Irish Experience', World
Economy, Vol. 23, No. 3, March 2000, pp. 405-421 (with H. Görg).
- Integration and the
Regions of Europe: How the Right Policies Can Prevent Polarisation
(with Pontus Braunerhjelm, Riccardo Faini, Victor Norman and Paul Seabright),
Centre for Economic Policy Research, London, March 2000, 115 pp.
- 'Globalisation and
Fragmentation: Evidence for the Electronics Industry in Ireland'
(with H. Görg). In: Arndt, Sven and Kierzkowski, Henryk (eds): FRAGMENTATION:
New Production Patterns in the World Economy. Oxford University
Press, forthcoming 2001.
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For much of the past three decades the Irish economy was plagued by the
combined problems of low growth-rates with high unemployment and
under-employment. I have published various papers in Irish and international
journals which examine the role of industrial policy in the process of economic
development. These include:
- 'Optimal Labour
Subsidies and Industrial Development in Ireland', Economic and
Social Review, Vol. 11, 1980, pp. 77-98.
- 'Economic Appraisal of
Industrial Projects in Ireland: A Comment', Journal of the
Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, Vol. 24,
1979-1980, pp. 135-8.
- 'Industrial
Development', Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry
Society of Ireland, 1982-83, Vol. 24, part 5, pp. 42-50 and 69-70.
- 'Government
Intervention and the Cost of Capital to Irish Manufacturing
Industry', Economic and Social Review, Vol. 16, No. 1,
1984, pp. 31-50 (with A. John).
- 'Payroll Taxes,
Capital Grants and Irish Unemployment - A Comment', Economic
and Social Review, Vol.21, No. 1, 1989, pp.122-125.
- 'Borrow and Prosper?
Notes on the User Cost of Capital - A Comment', Journal of the
Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, Vol. 26,
1989/90, pp.186-189.
- 'Determinants of Firm
Start-Up Size: An Application of Quartile Regression for Ireland', Small
Business Economics, Vol 14, pp 211-222, 2000 (with H. Görg and E.
Strobl).
- 'An Analysis of
Backward Linkages in the Irish Electronics Sector'. Forthcoming in
the Economic and Social Review, vol. 31, no. 3, 2000, pp.
215-235 (with H. Görg), Vol. 31, no. 3, 2000, pp. 215-235).
- 'Multinational
Companies and Linkages: Panel-data Evidence for the Irish electronics
sector'. Forthcoming in International Journal of the Economics
of Business, 2001 (with H. Görg).
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Over the past decade I have been invited to contribute empirical and policy
papers to Irish economic debates on labour market issues, including salary
differentials, labour market participation rates, the use of contract and
part-time labour, and on tax and social welfare policy. Most of these involved
national policy conference presentations and some resulted in publications,
including:
- 'Academic Salary
Differentials - Some Evidence from an Irish Survey', Economic
and Social Review, Vol. 21, No. 2., 1990, pp. 209-226 (with E.
Dobson).
- 'Economic Efficiency
and Female Participation in the Irish Labour Force', in A. Smyth
(ed.) Leadership and Women: From Participation to Partnership - The
Challenge of the 1990s, Council for the Status of Women, Dublin,
1991, pp. 42-53.
- 'Achieving Real
Equality of Opportunity in an Academic Environment: Recent Experience at
Trinity College Dublin', in C. Fennell and M. Mulcahy (eds.): Equality
of Opportunity in Irish Third Level Institutions, Cork: University
College Press, 1992, pp. 101-113.
- 'Taxation Measures and
Policy' in John O'Hagan (ed.): The Economy of Ireland: Policy
and Performance of a Small European Economy, Macmillan Press,
London 1995, pp 127-158 (with Francis O'Toole)
- 'Integrating Tax and
Social Welfare: The Report of the Nevin Committee', Irish
Banking Review, December 1996 (with Donal de Buitléir).
- 'Non-Standard
Employment in Irish Manufacturing: Do Firm Characteristics Matter?', LABOUR,
Vol. 12, No. 4, Winter 1998, pp. 675-699 (with L. Killen and H. Görg).
- Women in the Labour
Force, Report of the Employment Equality Agency, March 1999, (with
J. Sutherland) 91pp.
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Over the past four years I have been examining the effects that company
expenditures on research and development (R&D) have on the growth
performance in the Irish economy. While positive effects have always been
postulated, this study is the first to examine statistically, using econometric
models, the precise relationships involved. Early results reported very
positive relationships between company survival and R&D expenditures, and
ultimately the positive impact of R&D on employment performance. These
results have already influenced Irish policy-makers, who now look more
positively at the relationship between growth and R&D in the economy - an
approach now consolidated by the availability of EU funds to support company
R&D.
On the basis of this research, two papers have been circulated through Trinity
Economic Papers (the Economics Department's Web-based papers series),
several are with journals, having been presented at conferences, and one is in
press.
- 'To R&D or not to
R&D, that is the Question: a firm level study of Employment Growth in
the Irish Manufacturing Sector (1986-1995)', presented to Employment
Conference, Statistics Canada in Ottawa, Canada in September 1997
(with A. Kearns).
- 'The Post-Entry
Performance of Irish Plants: Does a plant's technological activity
matter?', presented to the Irish Economic Association
Conference, Derry, April 1998 (with A. Kearns), Trinity
Economic Papers, Technical Paper No. 20.
- 'The Tangible
Contribution of R&D-spending foreign owned plants to a host region: a
plant-level study of the Irish manufacturing sector (1980-96)', Research
Policy, Vol. 30, No. 2, February 2001, pp. 227-244 (with A.
Kearns).
- 'The Heterogeneity of
Foreign Direct Investment through Multinational Corporations: conclusions
from the Irish Experience', paper delivered at a conference entitled Industrial
Structure, Innovation Dynamics and Technology Policy, Lisbon,
October 1998 (with A. Kearns).
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