http://hdl.handle.net/2262/62017 2017-11-03T02:47:21Z http://hdl.handle.net/2262/61964 Book review: Selling out? ? privatisation in Ireland / by Paul Sweeney. Dublin: TASC/New Island, 2004. Reeves, Eoin Over the last fourteen years the Irish government has withdrawn entirely from direct public provision in sectors such as banking, food, insurance and telecommunications. The wave of privatisation and rationalisation that has been at the heart of this pattern of withdrawal is set to continue with a host of key decisions to be made about the future ownership and structure of sectors such as airports, aviation, buses, electricity and gas. Given the strategic importance of these sectors in an economy where improving international competitiveness is the cornerstone of much economic policy it is surprising that questions concerning privatisation and public enterprise have received little attention in terms of published critique and analysis. Paul Sweeney?s Selling Out ? Privatisation in Ireland? is therefore a welcome and timely contribution to the debate about this important aspect of public policy. 2005-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2262/60767 The single market and the geographical diversification of leading firms in the EU Pavelin, Stephen; Barry, Frank Geographical diversification describes the degree to which a firm?s operations in a particular industry are dispersed across countries. This paper presents evidence on the geographical diversification within the EU of the roughly 290 largest manufacturing firms in Europe. We explore how geographical diversification changed over the period when the Single Market came into effect, finding that it increased substantially. We also study the variation across sectors and across EU countries. Ireland ? which began its rapid convergence on average EU living standards over this period ? emerges as a special case and receives particular attention. 2005-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2262/60054 Labour productivity and foreign direct investment in Irish manufacturing industry: a decomposition analysis Ruane, Frances; Ugur, Ali Overall labour productivity in the Irish manufacturing sector increased by 158 per cent between 1991 and 1999. This paper examines the components of this labour productivity growth in the period 1991-1999, using a decomposition analysis based on plant level data. In order to account for the large presence of foreign plants we carry out our analysis separately for foreign and domestic plants, as well as for four ownership subgroups, four sectoral subgroups, and two time sub-periods. Our results show that although the main drivers of average labour productivity growth in all groups arise within plant and from plant entry, there are marked differences in the relative sizes of these effects across ownership/sector/time-period. 2005-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2262/60049 Cost efficiency in UK and Irish credit institutions Fitzpatrick, Trevor; McQuinn, Kieran This paper presents aggregated cost efficiency scores for a balanced panel of British and Irish credit institutions and relates these scores to loan loss reserves as a first step in investigating their usefulness as possible indicators of financial fragility. The efficiency scores are obtained using the two most popular methods of efficiency measurement ? data envelopment analysis (DEA) and the stochastic frontiers approach. 2005-01-01T00:00:00Z