http://hdl.handle.net/2262/1098 2013-05-19T10:41:52Z 2013-05-19T10:41:52Z Rama, Martín http://hdl.handle.net/2262/2938 2010-06-03T15:55:30Z 2002-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Globalisation and workers in developing countries Author: Rama, Martín Abstract: Stories of the positive and negative effects of globalisation on workers in developing countries abound. However, a comprehensive picture is missing and many of the stories are ideologically charged. This paper reviews the academic literature on the subject, including several studies currently underway, and derives the implications for public policy. Firstly, it deals with the effects of openness to trade, foreign direct investment and financial crises on average wages. Secondly, it discusses the impact of exposure to world markets on the dispersion of wages by occupation, skill and gender. Thirdly, it describes the pattern of job destruction and job creation associated with globalisation. Since these two processes are not synchronised, the fourth issue addressed is the impact on unemployment rates. Fifthly, the paper reviews the labour market policies that can be used to offset the adverse impacts of globalisation on employment and labour earnings. Finally, it discusses how the international community could encourage developing countries to adopt sound labour market policies in the context of globalisation. Description: Read before the Society, 18 April 2002

2002-01-01T00:00:00Z Harmon, Colm http://hdl.handle.net/2262/2624 2010-06-03T15:55:38Z 2002-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Schooling returns, schooling decisions and educational finance Author: Harmon, Colm Abstract: Given the presence of significant returns to education, it would seem logical to query why individuals choose to leave school early. This paper examines the evidence on this issue, dealing with both methodological and evidence-based findings. Drawing on existing research in the area of schooling returns, the evidence and deficiencies of the literature are explored in an effort to quantify the scale of the private return to education. The schooling decision is subsequently examined more closely, so as to investigate the effect of variables such as family income on that choice. Proposed educational finance solutions are then surveyed. Specifically, this paper reports on an experimental approach in the UK, which pays allowances to households and individual students for participation in education, thus reducing the opportunity cost of staying on at school. Finally, estimates are presented, based on an analysis of non-experimental UK data, of the probability of early school leaving, conditional on named variables. Description: Read before the Society, 16 May 2002. This lecture is delivered under the auspices of the Barrington Trust (founded by the bequest of John Barrington, Esq.) with the collaboration of the Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland.

2002-01-01T00:00:00Z Morgenroth, Edgar http://hdl.handle.net/2262/2623 2010-06-03T15:55:37Z 2002-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Evaluating methods for short to medium term county population forecasting Author: Morgenroth, Edgar Abstract: Public services provision and land use planning are crucially dependent on accurate population forecasts. Despite their importance, particularly for planning at the local level, population forecasts for Irish counties are not readily available. A number of different methods could be used to calculate such forecasts, but it is not clear which of these possible methods produces the most accurate forecasts. This paper assesses the data requirements and methodology involved in the implementation of the various techniques, and evaluates the forecasting performance of a number of different methods in terms of the forecast error associated with each method over the period 1991 to 1996. The results of this paper show that simple share extrapolation techniques perform well compared with the more elaborate cohort component model that is widely used for national projections. Description: Read before the Society, 7 March 2001

2002-01-01T00:00:00Z LUCEY, BRIAN MICHAEL Whelan, Shane F. http://hdl.handle.net/2262/2622 2010-06-03T15:55:37Z 2002-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: A promising timing strategy in equity markets Author: LUCEY, BRIAN MICHAEL; Whelan, Shane F. Abstract: In a working paper, Jacobsen and Bouman (2001) claim that that the old stock market saying of “sell in May and go away but buy back by St. Leger Day” produces statistically significant profit when tested on a large database of equity market returns over the last decade, three decades, and even longer periods. In a recently published paper, Sullivan, Timmerman and White (2001) dismissed the statistical significance of this or any other calendar-based trading rule, attributing the reported test results to a large data mining exercise of the academic and financial communities. In this paper, we provide an out-of-sample test on the Bouman and Jacobsen strategy and conclude that the reported results are indeed statistically significant. In doing so we reintroduce a reliable index of capital returns on the Irish equity market maintained contemporaneously by the Irish Central Statistical Office (and its forerunner) since January 1934 which, in its early decades, displays markedly different statistical properties to both the US and UK equity markets of that time and equity market returns generally in recent decades. As a subsidiary exercise we reconsider the extensive literature on monthly seasonality in equity markets with this novel index. It is contended that the abnormally high returns frequently reported in January and April and occasionally in February and other months are perhaps more accurately and certainly more parsimoniously ascribed to the half-year effect captured in the old stock market adage. Description: Read before the Society, 4 December 2001

2002-01-01T00:00:00Z Bradley, John http://hdl.handle.net/2262/2621 2010-06-05T18:48:54Z 2002-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: The computer sector in Irish manufacturing: past triumphs, present strains, future challenges Author: Bradley, John Abstract: The health of the computer sector has come to symbolise the modernisation and rapid growth of the Irish economy during the 1990s. Any threats to its sustainability strike at the heart of broader economic and industrial strategy. After a brief statistical overview, this paper examines the wider strategic factors that facilitated the rise of the Irish computer “agglomeration”. It describes how domestic policy evolved within a series of coherent frameworks that took account of the nature of the external environment (opportunities and threats) as well as realistic views of domestic capabilities (strengths and weaknesses). Within these frameworks, the decisions of individual policymakers shaped an industrial strategy that took decades to bear fruit and was a key contribution to bringing about convergence to EU standards of living. The paper also explores the likely future of the Irish computer sector, as it attempts to deal with an unfolding recession that started in the United States, the source of almost all high technology inward investment, but threatens to spread to Europe and elsewhere, key destinations of Irish computer-related exports. When the recession passes, the paper suggests that the Irish computer sector is unlikely simply to pick up where it left off in the buoyant latter part of the year 2000, but will undergo fundamental evolution and change in order to meet new global technological and economic challenges. Description: Read before the Society, 15 November 2001

2002-01-01T00:00:00Z Noble, Michael Lloyd, Myfanwy Wright, Gemma Dibben, Chris Smith, George http://hdl.handle.net/2262/1517 2010-06-03T15:55:38Z 2002-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Developing deprivation measures for Northern Ireland Author: Noble, Michael; Lloyd, Myfanwy; Wright, Gemma; Dibben, Chris; Smith, George Abstract: This paper outlines the development of a measure of “multiple deprivation” for Northern Ireland at small area level. To best construct such a measure, it is essential to have a clear conceptual model and translate this into a series of measures using the best data at hand. Thus, each dimension is measured independently using the best indicators available to generate a score or domain measure for each aspect of deprivation. These domain scores are then combined, with explicit weighting, to generate a multiple deprivation measure which is an aggregate of the component domains. The availability of new data has allowed these domains to be described with more precision, and in a more robust and consistent way than has been possible before. It is the hope of the researchers that as data quality and sources improve, so will the estimation procedures, as the multiple deprivation measure is reviewed and developed over time. Description: Read before the Society, 27 September 2001

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