A comparison of the national incomes and social accounts of Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom

Abstract

In March, 1933, Dr. T. J. Kiernan published in the Economic Journal a paper on ?The National Income of the Irish Free State in 1926,? following it in June by a paper to this Society on National Expenditure. Since that time the Society has many times renewed its interest in the accounts of national income?most notably in the formidable Symposium on National Income and Social Accounts, opened by Dr. M. D. McCarthy in January, 1952. In April, 1951, Mr Norman Cuthbert read a paper on ?Total Civilian Income in Northern Ireland,? which was the first occasion on which the problems of computing components of national income for Northern Ireland had been systematically tackled. In the discussion on Mr. Cuthbert's paper, Dr. Geary and Professor Joseph Johnston both warned their hearers not to attempt to make comparisons between the Six and the Twenty-Six Counties. It is with some trepidation, therefore, that we now proceed to make such comparisons.