The Aftermath of Sovereign Debt Crises: A Narrative Approach
Abstract: This paper investigates the causal effects of sovereign debt crises in a sample of 50 defaulting economies between 1870 and 2010. As default is potentially endogenous, we use the narrative approach to identify plausibly exogenous episodes. We find economically and statistically significant costs of up to 3.2 percent of GDP before recovering to the […]
Applied Economic History as Practical Historicism: Encouraging Policymakers to Reason with the Past
Abstract: This paper examines how applied history can contribute to policymaking when understood as a way of structuring judgement under uncertainty rather than as a source of policy lessons or predictions. It argues that economic history is particularly well suited to facilitating this role because it combines institutional analysis with disciplined comparison of plausible alternatives […]
Life, death, and Irish statistics: Recovering Ireland’s civil registration statistics, 1864-1920
Abstract: Civil registration of vital statistics was introduced in Ireland in 1864, yet historians have often viewed the resulting data as unreliable due to weak incentives for compliance and uneven administrative capacity. This paper reassesses the performance of Ireland’s vital registration system by tracing its legal origins, documenting its institutional development, and re-evaluating its demographic […]
The CEO: The Rise and Fall of Britain’s Captains of Industry
The CEOs of Britain’s largest companies wield immense power, but we know very little about them. How did they get to the top? Why do they have so much power? Are they really worth that exorbitant salary? Michael Aldous and John Turner provide the answers by telling the story of the British CEO over the […]
Quarterly GDP for Ireland Since 1950
Abstract: We construct estimates of quarterly GDP for Ireland from 1950, linking to official data from 1995 onward, using a novel factor-augmented Chow-Lin interpolation. Compared to the only alternative series (OECD, 2025), our procedure exploits the variation in a large number of official quarterly economic data and our estimates are broadly consistent with contemporary reports. […]
Rural electrification and secondary school enrolments in Ireland
Abstract: Electrification influences economic choices, not least by allowing households to replace labour with capital and to enhance domestic labour productivity. We test whether newly electrified households invested more in children’s human capital formation, proxied by secondary school enrolments, under Ireland’s Rural Electrification Scheme (1947-1966). IV panel regressions examine whether electrification led to higher per […]
Scarring and Selection in the Great Irish Famine
Summary: We study the health impact of the Great Irish Famine by comparing cohorts born during the Famine with those born immediately before and immediately after. We find evidence of selection in the countryside and scarring in the city. Abstract: How do famines shape the health of survivors? We examine the long-term impact of the […]
Religion and Economic Development: Past, Present, and Future
Abstract: This chapter examines the role of religion in economic development, both historically and today. Religion’s influence varies globally, with high religiosity in countries like Pakistan and low rates in China. Despite declines in some Western countries, religion remains influential worldwide, with projected growth in Muslim populations due to higher fertility rates. Religion continues to […]
Age structure and age heaping: solving Ireland’s post-famine digit preference puzzle
Abstract: The quality of age reporting in Ireland worsened in the years after the 1845–1852 Great Irish Famine, even as measures of educational attainment improved. We show how Ireland’s age structure partly accounts for this seemingly conflicting pattern. Specifically, we argue that a greater propensity to emigrate typified the youngest segment (23–32-year-olds) used in conventional […]
Taking a Punt: Monetary Experimentation and the Irish Macroeconomic Crisis of 1955-56
Abstract: The 1955-56 macroeconomic crisis is a central event in modern Irish history. Yet, despite this centrality, its causes are not clearly understood. In 1955-6, Ireland, which had previously followed British interest rates in lockstep as part of its fixed exchange with the latter, briefly experimented with independent monetary policy. Our contribution is twofold. First, […]
The Evolution of the Irish 12.5 Percent Corporate Tax Rate: An Oral History
Abstract: The sources formally documenting how tax policy evolves fail to capture many of the complexities inherent in such processes. Insights into such approaches would guide other tax administrations in navigating tax policy change in an international domain. This paper examines the historical background to the introduction of the Irish 12.5 percent corporate tax rate […]
From Pensions To Pupils? Schooling, Resource Constraints And Old Age Pensions In Ireland 1901-11
Abstract: A large literature argues that resource constraints inhibit human capital accumulation. We test this hypothesis using the introduction of the Old Age Pension in Ireland in 1908, evaluating its spillover on school enrolments within multigenerational households. Exploiting the OAP’s age-based and means-test criteria, we identify the causal effect of the cash transfer on enrolments […]
Housing Prices, Costs, And Policy: The Housing Supply Equation In Ireland Since 1970
Abstract: This article examines the responsiveness of new housing supply to prices and costs, using the case of Ireland at quarterly frequency from the 1970s, as well as a county-level panel from the 1990s. Across four error-correction specifications, and supported by an instrumental variables approach, we find the estimated elasticity of new housing supply to […]
Mind Your Language: Explaining the Retreat of the Irish Language Frontier
Abstract: Why do we choose one language over another? Rival views see language frontiers as exogenous, driven by policy, or endogenous, determined by social, cultural and economic forces. We study language loss in nineteenth-century Ireland’s bilingual society using individual-level data from the 1901 census. Our analysis highlights the intergenerational influence of the education received by […]
Long-term exposure to PM2.5 air pollution and mental health: a retrospective cohort study in Ireland
Abstract: Background Mental illness is the leading cause of years lived with disability, and the global disease burden of mental ill-health has increased substantially in the last number of decades. There is now increasing evidence that environmental conditions, and in particular poor air quality, may be associated with mental health and wellbeing. Methods This cross-sectional […]
A reappraisal of Cumann na nGaedheal economic policy
Abstract: This article surveys the economic policies pursued over the first decade of the Irish Free State. The Cumann na nGaedheal governments of W. T. Cosgrave are argued to have been more pragmatic than ideological in their approach and to have been more successful in their management of the economy than is generally realised. Keywords: […]
Irish GDP Since Independence
Abstract: This paper constructs annual GDP estimates for Ireland (1924-47) to join the first complete official aggregates. The new series is deployed to revisit Ireland’s economic performance in the post-independence decades. Ireland’s economy grew at 1.5 per cent per annum and average living standards improved by 40 per cent. The bulk of this was due […]
The Regional Location of Indigenous and Foreign Manufacturing Establishments, 1929-1975
Abstract: Regional industrial location has been a matter of intense political interest throughout the history of the state. Details of the geographic distribution of manufacturing establishments are sparse however – particularly up to EEC accession – as reporting of the relevant data was heavily constrained by the requirement to maintain firm level confidentiality. Our research […]
What can we learn from historical pandemics? A systematic review of the literature
Abstract: What are the insights from historical pandemics for policymaking today? We carry out a systematic review of the literature on the impact of pandemics that occurred since the Industrial Revolution and prior to Covid-19. Our literature searches were conducted between June 2020 and September 2023, with the final review encompassing 169 research papers selected […]
Banks and the Economy: Evidence from the Irish Bank Strike of 1966
Abstract: This paper studies a natural experiment in macroeconomic history: the Irish bank strike of 1966, which led to the closure of the major commercial banks for three months. We use synthetic control to estimate how the economy would have evolved had the strike not happened. We find that economic activity slowed, deviating by 6% […]
Social housing and the spread of population: Evidence from twentieth century Ireland
Abstract: How does housing policy influence the long-run distribution of population? We examine the impact on long-term population dynamics of the world’s first large-scale rural public housing scheme, specifically the case of Ireland’s Labourers Acts. We link detailed data on the location of over 45,000 heavily subsidized cottages for agricultural laborers built 1883–1915 in over 200 […]
Should History Change The Way We Think About Populism?
Abstract: This paper asks whether history should change the way in which economists and economic historians think about populism. We use Müller’s definition, according to which populism is ‘an exclusionary form of identity politics, which is why it poses a threat to democracy’. We make three historical arguments. First, late 19th century US Populists were […]
Tracing Sustainability In The Long Run: Genuine Savings Estimates 1850 – 2018
Abstract: We introduce a new database of historical Genuine Savings (GS), an indicator of sustainable development promoted by the World Bank and widely used in contemporary economic research. GS derives from the theoretical work on wealth accounting, and addresses shortcomings in conventional metrics of economic development by incorporating broader measures of saving and investment, including […]
The Nationalist Dilemma: A Global History of Economic Nationalism, 1776–Present
Summary: Nationalists think about the economy, Marvin Suesse argues, and this thinking matters once nationalists hold political power. Many nationalists seek to limit global exchange, but others prioritise economic development. The potential conflict between these two goals shapes nationalist policy making. Drawing on historical case studies from thirty countries – from the American Revolution to […]
Agglomeration and emigration: The economic impact of railways in post-Famine Ireland
Abstract: Ireland developed one of the world’s most intensive railroad networks in the second half of the 19th century. However, the emergence of railroads occurred in tandem with a failure to industrialize and mass depopulation suggesting limited, if any, impact on the island’s economy. This paper examines this claim from a trade-based market-access perspective. Matching […]
Demography and age heaping: solving Ireland’s post-famine digit preference puzzle
Abstract: The quality of age reporting in Ireland worsened in the years after the Great Irish Famine (1845–1852), even as other measures of educational attainment improved. We show how demography partly accounts for this seemingly conflicting pattern. Specifically, we argue that a greater propensity to emigrate typified the youngest segment (23–32- year-olds) used in conventional […]
Business Creation and Political Turmoil: Ireland versus Scotland before 1900
Abstract: What effect does political instability in the form of a potential secession from a political union have on business formation? Using newly collected data on business creation, we show that entrepreneurial activity in Ireland in the late nineteenth century was much lower than Scotland, and this divergence fluctuated over time. Several factors may have […]
and 
by