Abstract
The nature of the Irish economy, and the definition of Ireland’s economic problem, were shaped by a combination of events that occurred in the nineteenth century. One of these was the large-scale emigration that the Great Famine induced. This left as its legacy a willingness and an ability on the part of the population to migrate when economic prospects elsewhere seemed brighter. Ireland henceforth functioned more as a regional economy, whose population expands or contracts as economic conditions dictate, than as a national economy whose population size is determined largely by demographic factors. As Krugman (1997) points out, national productivity determines the well-being of a national economy, regardless of the sectors in which the economy specializes. The size of a regional economy on the other hand is crucially determined by its export base (or more generally by its international competitiveness); if exports collapse, for example, regional income falls, expenditure on non-tradeables declines, and workers emigrate.
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Barry, F. (1999). Irish Growth in Historical and Theoretical Perspective. In: Barry, F. (eds) Understanding Ireland’s Economic Growth. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780333985052_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780333985052_3
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