Celtic Tiger

The Finance Curse: How Global Finance Is Making Us All Poorer
by Nicholas Shaxson
Published 10 Oct 2018

He was also an evangelist for the need to ‘unleash the wealth creators’ with a ‘competitive’ economy, and to spend the bountiful proceeds – but with a difference. While Blair and Clinton waited until they had left office to take on lucrative consultancies, Haughey was happy to enrich himself while still in office. And the Celtic Tiger economy that he helped usher in would be the shining poster child for them all. 6 The Celtic Tiger The tale of the Celtic Tiger, the Irish economic growth miracle of the 1990s and early 2000s, has become one of the most influential morality tales in the economic history of the modern world. The Irish model of low corporate taxes offered the ultimate free lunch: painless tax cuts leading to economic growth and, ultimately, larger tax revenues from the flood of new investment generated by those cuts.

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‘World Bank, Foreign direct investment, net inflows (percentage of GDP) for Ireland,’ available at data.worldbank.org. For a brief summary of the two booms, see Jack Copley, ‘The Celtic Tiger: the Irish banking inquiry and a tale of two booms’, foolsgold.international blog, 5 May 2016. He in turn cites D. O’Hearn ‘Globalization, “New Tigers”, and the End of the Developmental State? The Case of the Celtic Tiger’, Politics and Society 28:1, 2000, pp.67–92; and P. Kirby, Celtic Tiger in Distress: Explaining the Weaknesses of the Irish Model, second edition, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 16. The Apple subsidiary was Apple Sales International.

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‘The Irish formula [became] the new universal truth of economics, society and development,’ wrote Fintan O’Toole, a commentator for the Irish Times and author of Ship of Fools, a firecracker of a book about the Celtic Tiger. ‘It transcended history and geography and worked irrespective of time and place.’1 And though the boom contained a lot of froth, and the global financial crisis mauled Ireland worse than most countries, the tiger was no illusion, and the beast remains alive today: foreign investment remains strong; cranes decorate the skyline again; cafés groan with banker-talk, and there is a palpable sense of life and purpose in Dublin. The story of the Celtic Tiger seems like a thunderbolt of evidence aimed squarely at one of the central arguments of this book: that if you want to build a prosperous and inclusive economy, you don’t need to ‘compete’ on things like cutting corporate tax rates or relaxing financial regulations.

Home: Why Public Housing Is the Answer
by Eoin Ó Broin
Published 5 May 2019

As ever expanding financial providers sought out ever more lucrative markets a toxic housing-finance feedback cycle was put in motion, driving up prices and forcing decisions on housing to be made not according to public need or proper planning but on the basis of bottom line return. This cycle lay at the heart of the rise of the Celtic Tiger from 1996 and the global Great Recession from 2008. It drove up house prices and rents, and fuelled an affordability crisis that in turn accelerated the social housing and homelessness crises in the decade after the recession. While post-crash bank caution and sensible macro-prudential mortgage lending regulations by the Central Bank have constrained mortgage credit for individual households it would be wrong to think that the Celtic Tiger era housing-finance feedback cycle is gone. Rather the risks to our housing system from the financial sector have simply moved from household lending to a host of investment vehicles.

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Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, ESRI. (2018) Discrimination and Inequality in Housing in Ireland. Kenna, Padraic. (2011) Housing Law, Rights and Policy. Clarus Press. Keogh, Dermot. (1994) Twentieth-Century Ireland: Nation and State. Gill and Macmillan. Kirby, Peadar. (2002) The Celtic Tiger in Distress: Growth with Inequality in Ireland. Palgrave. Kirby, Peadar, Mary Murphy. (2007) Ireland as a Competition State. IPEG Papers. Kirby, Peadar. (2010) Celtic Tiger in Collapse: Explaining the Weaknesses of the Irish Model. Palgrave. Lee, J.J. (1989) Ireland, 1912–1985: Politics and Society. Cambridge University Press. Lewis, Eddie. (2019) Social Housing Policy in Ireland: New Directions.

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As the millennium approached the Southern Irish housing system was set for a period of massive growth in investment and house building. So too in housing need as ever greater numbers of people were unable to access secure or affordable housing either from the private market or from Local Authorities and the Approved Housing Body sector. House Prices Explode The arrival of the Celtic Tiger economy can be measured against a number of indicators including rising levels of employment, increasing Gross Domestic Product and greater levels of consumer spending. However, given the centrality of housing to both the boom and subsequent bust, the arrival of double digit house price inflation is probably the best gauge of when the Tiger economy really started to roar.

The Passenger
by The Passenger
Published 27 Dec 2021

A full 1,300 calories, preferably to be consumed at a service station on the way to work the morning after a heavy night – a ritual celebrated by the comic Pat Shortt in his 2006 hit ‘Jumbo Breakfast Roll’ (‘I don’t have time for a fancy breakfast or put muesli in a bowl / I just head to the Statoil garage for the jumbo breakfast roll’). Breakfast Roll Man was the symbol of the Celtic Tiger. The economist and journalist David McWilliams, who coined the term in his 2005 book The Pope’s Children (he was also responsible for the term Celtic Tiger), described him as the symbol of the Irish economy at the height of the construction bubble: the small-time building-trade subcontractor constantly rushing around at the wheel of his van. He was seen as the reason for the unexpected re-election of Bertie Ahern for a third term in 2007.

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An Ocean of Wisdom — Manchán Magan In the Gaelic-speaking Gaeltachtaí it is still possible to find in the old Irish words traces of Ireland’s once-flourishing fishing and maritime past – but it is a way of life now in desperate decline. Talismans — Sara Baume The artist and writer Sara Baume reflects on the way her country’s built environment has changed amid the legacy of the Celtic Tiger years and a new appreciation of traditional Irish architecture. Everything That Falls Must Also Rise — Colum McCann The New York-based Irish writer reflects on the choice he and so many others made to emigrate, leaving their native country behind but carrying it in their hearts for ever. At the Edge of Two Unions: Northern Ireland’s Causeway Coast — Mark Devenport County Antrim looks out over the narrow North Channel that separates Ireland from Great Britain and, post-Brexit, marks the border between the EU and UK markets.

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* Ireland has come a long way in the last thirty years. But many battles still remain. Many important conversations are still to be had; many more stories need to be brought out into the light. So where to now? As a child of the 1950s I looked around me in astonishment at the sudden affluence of what was called our ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy, a boom that lasted for over a decade, starting in the mid-1990s and ending abruptly in 2008. When the global crash happened Ireland suffered badly, along with Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain, the so-called PIIGS of Europe. It was a huge step backwards in so many ways, a stark reminder that housing, health and education have to be a state’s top priorities.

The Transformation Of Ireland 1900-2000
by Diarmaid Ferriter
Published 15 Jul 2009

Ardagh, Ireland and the Irish, p. 315. 154. Kevin Kenny, The American Irish: A History (Harlow, 2000), p. 223. 155. ibid., foreword. 156. Ray O’Hanlon, The New Irish Americans (Dublin, 1998), p. 157. 157. Sweeney, Celtic Tiger, p. 5. 158. O’Hagan (ed.), The Economy of Ireland, pp. 40–41. 159. Ó Gráda, Rocky Road, p. 90. 160. Denis O’Hearn, Inside the Celtic Tiger: The Irish Economy and the Asian Model (London, 1998), p. x. 161. Fintan O’Toole, Mass for Jesse James, p. 108. 162. ibid. 163. McDonald, Construction of Dublin, pp. 202ff. 164. Hourihane, She Moves through the Boom, pp. 48–9. 165.

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An insert in the play’s programme pointed out that many of the latter were living in dreadful conditions in the bigger urban centres of England. But there was a strong political point to be made also: the emigrants’ remittances are testimony to the sacrifices made so selflessly by our emigrants to sustain our Irish economy over the years. These unique people rebuilt Britain after the Second World War, and were our original ‘Celtic Tiger’, helping us pay off our own national debt. Now the Irish economy is booming, it is time that we pay off our second national debt, which is due to our emigrants, not in charity, but in justice.68 This was a long overdue recognition of something which many in Ireland had refused to accept in the post-war period, including those who had gone so far as to accuse those who did not stay at home of being unpatriotic, even though so much emigration in the 1950s was born of necessity.

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Ireland finished the twentieth century richer than could have been imagined, even during the relative affluence of the 1960s. A new middle-class generation, on the cusp of adulthood in the late 1990s, had never known anything but economic prosperity. It is still jolting to read the opening line of one of the books that sought to explain what became known as the ‘Celtic Tiger’: ‘Ireland has had the fastest growing economy in the world in the last years of the twentieth century.’129 After decades of under-development and stagnation, ‘Ireland’ had become rich. But what was done (and not done) with that wealth would remain a source of fierce debate. Critical observers depicted a society that had become vulgar in its opulence, and indifferent to redistribution.

Lonely Planet Ireland
by Lonely Planet

Despite slow and steady improvements, the city – like the rest of Ireland – continued to be plagued by rising unemployment, high emigration rates and a general stagnation that hung about like an impenetrable cloud. Dubliners made the most of the little they had, but times were tough. The city has been in and out of recession for decades, but the dramatic dip that followed the sky-high good times of the Celtic Tiger was especially severe: Dublin is recovering more than the rest of the country, but recuperation has still been slow. Neighbourhoods at a Glance 1Grafton St & Around The bustling heart of the city centre revolves around pedestrianised Grafton St and the warren of streets around it. Within its easily walkable confines, this neighbourhood is where most of the action takes place, where you’ll find the biggest range of pubs and restaurants, and where most Dubliners come to blow off some retail steam.

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It is a slightly gimmicky and touristy phenomenon that is aimed at Joyce fanatics and tourists, but it's plenty of fun and a great way to lay the groundwork for actually reading the book. 4Sleeping The surge in tourist numbers and the relative lack of beds means hotel prices are higher than they were during the Celtic Tiger years. There are good midrange options north of the Liffey, but the biggest spread of accommodation is south of the river, from midrange Georgian townhouses to the city's top hotels. Budget travellers rely on the selection of decent hostels. Grafton Street & Around Grafton St itself has only one hotel – one of the city's best – but you'll find a host of choices in the area surrounding it.

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Rathdrum Pop 1663 The quiet village of Rathdrum, sitting above the River Avonmore at the foot of the Vale of Clara, is famed as the birthplace of nationalist hero Charles Stewart Parnell (1846–91), whose story is told at nearby Avondale House and in the memorial park at the south end of the main street. Apart from the park, there's little of interest in the village itself, which was a victim of the property crash that followed the boom of the Celtic Tiger years – there are more than a few boarded-up buildings and abandoned construction sites scarring the streets – but there are a couple of worthwhile sights and some good walks in the surrounding area. 1Sights & Activities Kilmacurragh Botanic GardensGARDENS ( GOOGLE MAP ; %0404-48844; www.botanicgardens.ie; Kilbride; h9am-6pm mid-Feb–Oct, to 4.30pm Nov–mid-Feb)F Surrounding the ruins of an 18th-century mansion are these ornamental gardens originally laid out in 1712 and replanted in the 19th century to reflect the wilder, antiformal style of William Robinson (1838–1935); particularly notable are the South American conifers, the colourful rhododendrons and the avenue of yews.

A United Ireland: Why Unification Is Inevitable and How It Will Come About
by Kevin Meagher
Published 15 Nov 2016

A young, well-educated workforce (nearly half the Republic’s population – 49 per cent – is under thirty-five, whereas the EU average is just 40 per cent), a competitive tax regime, membership of the single market and a huge hinterland in the United States has provided a potent mix (especially as US companies account for two-thirds of foreign direct investment into Ireland). The Celtic Tiger years, from the mid-1990s until the crash of 2008, saw the Irish economy soar, with growth rates of 5–6 per cent a year. In 2005, The Economist Intelligence Unit found the Republic had the highest quality of life in the world, according to the basket of criteria in its quality-of-life index, beating Switzerland into second place (while Great Britain only managed the twenty-ninth spot).

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As clean bills of health go, it was pretty emphatic and evidence that Ireland is keen to get back down to business. (Indeed, the World Bank calculates the Irish economy has been growing by around 2.5 per cent a year since 2012.) A key ingredient in this success has been the Republic’s record of wooing foreign direct investment. The approach became a cornerstone during the Celtic Tiger years, but the strategy stretches further back to the economic reforms of Seán Lemass in the 1960s. Indeed, it goes even further back than that, to Henry Ford, who was one of the first major foreign investors in the country back in 1917, opening a car plant in Cork, the birthplace of his father.

Ireland (Lonely Planet, 9th Edition)
by Fionn Davenport
Published 15 Jan 2010

* * * Return to beginning of chapter GROWING PAINS & ROARING TIGERS Unquestionably the most significant figure since independence, Éamon de Valera’s contribution to an independent Ireland was immense but, as the 1950s stretched into the 1960s, his vision for the country was mired in a conservative and traditional orthodoxy that was patently at odds with the reality of a country in desperate economic straits, where chronic unemployment and emigration were but the more visible effects of inadequate policy. De Valera’s successor as Taoiseach was Sean Lemass, whose tenure began in 1959 with the dictum ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’. By the mid-1960s his economic policies had halved emigration and ushered in a new prosperity that was to be mirrored 30 years later by the Celtic Tiger. In 1972 the Republic (along with Northern Ireland) became a member of the European Economic Community (EEC), which brought an increased measure of prosperity thanks to the benefits of the Common Agricultural Policy, which set fixed prices and guaranteed quotas for Irish farming produce. Nevertheless, the broader global depression, provoked by the oil crisis of 1973, forced the country into yet another slump and emigration figures rose again, reaching a peak in the mid-1980s.

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In less than a decade, Ireland went from being one of the poorest countries in Europe to one of the wealthiest: unemployment fell from 18% to 3.5%, the average industrial wage somersaulted to the top of the European league and the dramatic rise in GDP meant that the government had far more money than it knew what do with. Ireland became synonymous with the Celtic Tiger, an economic model of success that was the envy of the entire world. Coupled with Ireland’s economic growth was a steady social shift away from the Catholic Church’s overwhelmingly conservative influence, which was felt virtually everywhere, not least in the state’s schools and hospitals and over every aspect of social policy.

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Over 100,000 people attend Sands’ funeral. 1993 Downing Street Declaration is signed by British prime minister John Major and Irish prime minister Albert Reynolds. It states that Britain has no ‘selfish, strategic or economic interest in Northern Ireland’. Mid-1990s Low corporate tax, restraint in government spending, transfer payments from the EU and a low-cost labour market result in the ‘Celtic Tiger’ boom, transforming Ireland into one of Europe’s wealthiest countries. 1994 Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams announces a ‘cessation of violence’ on behalf of the IRA on 31 August. In October the Combined Loyalist Military Command also announces a ceasefire. 1998 On 10 April negotiations culminate in the Good Friday Agreement, under which the new Northern Ireland Assembly is given full legislative and executive authority. 1998 The ‘Real IRA’ detonates a bomb in Omagh, killing 29 people and injuring 200.

Boom and Bust: A Global History of Financial Bubbles
by William Quinn and John D. Turner
Published 5 Aug 2020

Mayer, ‘Housing bubbles’, 564, 574. 56. Mian and Sufi, ‘The consequences’; House of Debt; Dell’Arriccia, Igan and Laeven, ‘Credit booms’; Mayer, ‘Housing bubbles’; Santos, ‘Antes del diluvio’; Ruiz, Stupariu and Vilarino, ‘The crisis’; Norris and Coates, ‘Mortgage availability’; ‘How housing killed the Celtic Tiger’; Dellepiane, Hardiman and Heras, ‘Building on easy money’; Turner, Banking in Crisis, pp. 93–9. 57. Case and Shiller, ‘Is there a bubble?’, 335. 58. Commission of Investigation into the Banking Sector in Ireland, Misjudging Risk, p. ii, 20. 59. Jiménez, ‘Building boom’, 263. 60. Mayer, ‘Housing bubbles’, 574. 61.

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Kindleberger, C. P. Manias, Panics and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises, 3rd edition, London: Macmillan, 1996. King, W. T. C. History of the London Discount Market, London: Frank Cass, 1935. Kitchin, R., O’Callaghan, C. and Gleeson, J. ‘The new ruins of Ireland? Unfinished estates in the post-Celtic Tiger Era’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 38, 1,069–80, 2014. Kleer, R. A. ‘Riding a wave: the Company’s role in the South Sea Bubble’, Economic History Review, 68, 264–85, 2015. Kleer, R. A. ‘“The folly of particulars”: the political economy of the South Sea Bubble’, Financial History Review, 19, 175–97, 2012.

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‘Land prices and house prices in Japan’ in Y. Noguchi and J. Poterba (eds.), Housing Markets in the U.S. and Japan, University of Chicago Press, 1994. Noguchi, Y. ‘The “bubble” and economic policies in the 1980s’, The Journal of Japanese Studies, 20, 291–329, 1994. 275 BIBLIOGRAPHY Norris, M. and Coates, D. ‘How housing killed the Celtic tiger: anatomy and consequences of Ireland’s housing boom and bust’, Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 29, 299–315, 2014. Norris, M. and Coates, D. ‘Mortgage availability, qualifications and risks in Ireland, 2000-2009’, Journal of Current Issues in Finance, Business and Economics, 4, 191–206, 2011.

Global Financial Crisis
by Noah Berlatsky
Published 19 Feb 2010

The Spanish government is still essentially in denial about the scale of the correction needed and has been busy trying to spend its way out of trouble, with the predictable negative consequence that the country’s once solid fiscal surplus is now spiraling downward into deficit at breathtaking speed. Indeed, the European Commission (EC) has already initiated an excess deficit procedure against Spain. As for Ireland, it was not so long ago that the country’s economy was experiencing a boom of such proportions that it came to be known as the “Celtic Tiger.” Now, the tiger is tanking. The EC forecasts a 5 percent contraction in GDP this year; unemployment is widely expected to hit 11 percent; and house prices have plummeted. As a result, the Irish fiscal deficit is expected to rise to 9.4 percent in 2009. Again, the EC has opened an excess deficit procedure, and the country is being threatened with losing its AAA debt rating [its debt will be considered less safe, or less likely to be repaid]. 94 Effects of the Global Financial Crisis on Wealthier Nations The Crisis in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia The EU’s [European Union’s] most recent members are also feeling the chilly winds of recession.

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See United Kingdom Brown, Gordon, 26, 46, 47, 60, 108, 110, 111, 113–114 250 Bubbles “rational,” 39–40 real estate, and social contagion, 35–36, 38–41 real estate, U.S., 16–17, 32, 34, 38–39 real estate, world, 18, 87, 209– 210 stock market, 41, 87 technology economy, 56–57 Building industry economic growth contributions, 34 slowdowns, 131, 133 Bulgaria, 95, 98, 99 Bunning, Jim, 202 Business failures, 19 Business subsidies, 201, 202–206 “Buy American” provisions, stimulus plans, 181–182 C Cable, Vince, 42–52 Calderón, Felipe, 182 California, homelessness, 75, 76–77 Campaign contributions, 201, 206 Canada, 80–84 Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, 82 Capital ratios, 103, 216–217, 221, 227 Caribbean, 160–161 Carmody, Sean, 85–91 Cash. See Liquidity crises Cato Institute, 202–203 “Celtic Tiger” phenomenon, 94 Charitable agencies, 76–77, 123– 124, 137 Chauzy, Jean-Philippe, 133–134 Chávez, Hugo, 184 Index Chile, 161–162 China, 22–26, 65–71, 108–120, 135–142, 143–149 blames U.S. policies for crisis, 22–26 could use crisis to become responsible world power, 143–149 crisis may worsen poverty, 135–142 economic growth and success, 136–137, 144, 145 G-20 role, 145, 146 investment, U.S., 18, 24, 144, 147 migrant workers, 110, 116, 130 must join with U.S. to control crisis, 65–71 stimulus packages, 19, 135, 140, 141–142, 144–145 trade with Africa, 195 trade with U.S., 65, 66, 70–71, 144, 147 unrest, 19, 25, 108–120, 139– 140 Clearinghouse regulations, 49–50 Climate change policy, 26, 163 Collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), 50, 88 Colombia, 161–162, 180, 182, 183, 184 Common Cause, 205–206 Communist Party, China, 110, 114–116, 139–140 Comparative advantage, 192–193 Competitiveness, financial, 48–49 Congress business subsidies, 202, 203, 204, 205–206 hearings, 175 predatory lending, 206 protectionism and trade agreements, 181, 182, 184 Construction industry, 34, 130, 131, 133 Consumer confidence, 63, 91, 100, 208, 213, 216 Corporate welfare, 201, 202–206 See also Bailouts Cox, Pamela, 158–159 Credit default swaps (CDSs), 17, 28, 29, 50, 175–176, 215 Credit derivatives.

Seasteading: How Floating Nations Will Restore the Environment, Enrich the Poor, Cure the Sick, and Liberate Humanity From Politicians
by Joe Quirk and Patri Friedman
Published 21 Mar 2017

See also Michael Walsh, “The Beatles Ignited a Cultural Revolution in the Soviet Youth That Helped Overthrow the USSR: Former Spy,” Daily News, June 1, 2013, www.nydailynews.com/news/world/beatles-beat-communism-spy-article-1.1360024. “the Celtic Tiger” had surpassed the per capita wealth of the United Kingdom: Benjamin Powell, “Economic Freedom and Growth: The Case of the Celtic Tiger,” Cato Journal 22, no. 3 (2003): 431–48, http://mercatus.org/uploadedFiles/Mercatus/Publications/Tiger.pdf. Hong Kong has one of the highest GDPs per person: “Nominal GDP List of Countries. Data for the Year 2010,” World Economic Outlook Database, September 2011, International Monetary Fund.

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Asian hyperaccelerations of wealth sparked the beginnings of a movement around the world to establish special economic zones, usually designed to encourage foreign private investors through lower taxes and tariffs. The rush of small states to embarrass former empires was under way. The island of Ireland, one of Europe’s poorest countries for more than two centuries, set a new economic policy favoring open markets in the 1990s, and by the end of the decade, “the Celtic Tiger” had surpassed the per capita wealth of the United Kingdom. Later, the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania adopted more market-friendly policies and transformed themselves into modern productive societies, easily surpassing their former Russian occupiers. Tariffs do not exist in Hong Kong.

Rough Guide DIRECTIONS Dublin
by Geoff Wallis

Nearby, at the junction with Abbey Street Lower, Oisín Kelly’s remarkable Chariot of Life sculpture shows a charioteer struggling to control his horses, meant to represent the conflict between passion and reason. The mammoth forty-acre site of the International Financial Services Centre dominates the eastern edge of Memorial Road, a symbol of the “Celtic Tiger” boom of the 1990s. Irish Famine Memorial Custom House Quay. Set between the looming presence of the IFSC and the Liffey, these six life-size bronzes were designed and cast by the Dublin sculptor Rowan Gillespie to mark the 150th anniversary of the worst year of the Great Famine (1845–49), or Black ’47 as it is sometimes known.

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Radio Éireann is established. 1938  Douglas Hyde becomes Ireland’s first President and takes occupancy of the former viceregal lodge in Phoenix Park, now known as Áras an Uachtaráin. 1948  A coalition government led by the Fine Gael party passes the Republic of Ireland Act, establishing the country as a republic from the following year. 1953  The central bus station Busáras is constructed, becoming the capital’s first Modernist building. 1966  Republicans blow up Nelson’s Column on O’Connell Street in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Easter Rising. 1972  Rioters attack and burn down the British Embassy in Dublin in protest at the shooting dead of thirteen civilians by British troops in Derry on “Bloody Sunday”. 1974  As the Troubles in Northern Ireland escalate, Loyalists detonate car-bombs in Dublin, killing 26 people. 1976  14-year-old drummer Larry Mullen forms a band at his Clontarf school which will go through various changes of name, from Feedback to The Hype, before finally settling upon U2, releasing its first single in 1979. 1979  Pope John Paul II visits Ireland and celebrates Mass with a congregation of more than a million people in Phoenix Park. 1990s  After a decade of recession, Ireland’s economy enjoys an upswing, giving rise to the nickname “Celtic Tiger”. The city sees the beginnings of a huge building boom, the most notable change being the redevelopment of Temple Bar. 1991  Mary Robinson becomes Ireland’s first woman president. 1994  The Eurovision Song Contest, staged in Dublin, includes a seven-minute showstopper fusion of traditional dance and contemporary music, spawning the full-length show Riverdance, which becomes an international phenomenon. 2000s  Irish political life is racked by a series of scandals involving financial corruption at the highest level.

Vanished Kingdoms: The Rise and Fall of States and Nations
by Norman Davies
Published 30 Sep 2009

Eventually a leading Irish commentator, foreseeing disaster, described his country as ‘A Ship of Fools’.96 Damien Dempsey was the songster who set the national mood to music: Greedy, greedy, greedy, greedy, greedy So greedy, greedy, greedy, greedy, greedy Now they say the Celtic Tiger in my home town Brings jewels and crowns, picks you up off the ground But the Celtic Tiger does two things It brings you good luck or it eats you for its supper. It’s the tale of the two cities on the shamrock shore. Please Sir can I have some more, Cos if you are poor you’ll be eaten for sure. And that’s how I know the poor have more taste than the rich And that’s how I know the poor have more taste than the rich.

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‘A Nation Once Again’, composed by Thomas Osborne Davis (1814–45), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/a_nation_once_again (2009); see also http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/us/features/topten (2009), with audio recording by the Wolfe Tones. 96. Fintan O’Toole, Ship of Fools: How Stupidity and Corruption Killed the Celtic Tiger (London, 2009). 97. Damien Dempsey, ‘Celtic Tiger’, http://www.justsomelyrics.com/1511874 (2011). 98. Michael Cox et al., A Farewell to Arms: Beyond the Good Friday Agreement, 2nd edn. (Manchester, 2006). 99. Mary MacAleese, ‘Changing History’, Longford Lecture, 23 November 2007, quoted Margaret Macmillan, The Uses and Abuses of History (London, 2009), p. 72. 100.

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Thanks to investment in education and modern technology, and to membership of the European Union, remarkable advances took place from the 1960s onwards; Ireland’s GDP per capita rose decade by decade until at the beginning of the twenty-first century it overtook that of the United Kingdom. For a time, Irish citizens enjoyed the top ranking in the Worldwide Quality of Life Index.7 Not until the global recession of 2008–9 did the ‘Celtic Tiger’ (so named in 1994) stumble, and with it the political elite’s reputation. Out of Prince Albert’s hearing, the talk in Dublin was of ineffectual leadership, and of ‘a culture of clientilism, cronyism and corruption’. The official Irish version of Irish history is built round a three-part scheme of periodization.

Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe
by Norman Davies
Published 27 Sep 2011

Eventually a leading Irish commentator, foreseeing disaster, described his country as ‘A Ship of Fools’.96 Damien Dempsey was the songster who set the national mood to music: Greedy, greedy, greedy, greedy, greedy So greedy, greedy, greedy, greedy, greedy Now they say the Celtic Tiger in my home town Brings jewels and crowns, picks you up off the ground But the Celtic Tiger does two things It brings you good luck or it eats you for its supper. It’s the tale of the two cities on the shamrock shore. Please Sir can I have some more, Cos if you are poor you’ll be eaten for sure. And that’s how I know the poor have more taste than the rich And that’s how I know the poor have more taste than the rich.

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‘A Nation Once Again’, composed by Thomas Osborne Davis (1814–45), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/a_nation_once_again (2009); see also http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/us/features/topten (2009), with audio recording by the Wolfe Tones. 96. Fintan O’Toole, Ship of Fools: How Stupidity and Corruption Killed the Celtic Tiger (London, 2009). 97. Damien Dempsey, ‘Celtic Tiger’, http://www.justsomelyrics.com/1511874 (2011). 98. Michael Cox et al., A Farewell to Arms: Beyond the Good Friday Agreement, 2nd edn. (Manchester, 2006). 99. Mary MacAleese, ‘Changing History’, Longford Lecture, 23 November 2007, quoted Margaret Macmillan, The Uses and Abuses of History (London, 2009), p. 72. 100.

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Thanks to investment in education and modern technology, and to membership of the European Union, remarkable advances took place from the 1960s onwards; Ireland’s GDP per capita rose decade by decade until at the beginning of the twenty-first century it overtook that of the United Kingdom. For a time, Irish citizens enjoyed the top ranking in the Worldwide Quality of Life Index.7 Not until the global recession of 2008–9 did the ‘Celtic Tiger’ (so named in 1994) stumble, and with it the political elite’s reputation. Out of Prince Albert’s hearing, the talk in Dublin was of ineffectual leadership, and of ‘a culture of clientilism, cronyism and corruption’. The official Irish version of Irish history is built round a three-part scheme of periodization.

Unhappy Union: How the Euro Crisis - and Europe - Can Be Fixed
by John Peet , Anton La Guardia and The Economist
Published 15 Feb 2014

When it burst, they would collapse and spending would shoot up to pay for unemployed construction workers. Ireland’s net exports were booming even as it was overheating, but Spain’s were shrinking. Over two decades, Ireland had gone from being the poorest EU country to being one of the richest. But while the Celtic Tiger put on real muscle in the early years, boosting productivity by turning itself into an export base for multinationals, later it just gorged itself on cheap credit. Among the laggards, Germany’s sickliness masked a process of protracted reform, especially Gerhard Schröder’s Agenda 2010 labour-market and welfare changes, pushed through after 2003.

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, IEA, 2013 Carswell, S., Anglo Republic, Inside the Bank that Broke Ireland, Penguin Ireland 2011 Cornelius, S., Angela Merkel: The Authorised Biography, Alma Books, 2013 Crawford, A. and Czuczka, T., Angela Merkel: A Chancellorship Forged in Crisis, Wiley, 2013 De Grauwe, P., Economics of Monetary Union, 9th edition, Oxford University Press, 2012 Gammelin, C. and Löw, R., Europas Strippenzieher (in German), Ullstein Buchverlage Berlin, 2014 Goulard, S. and Monti, M., De la démocratie en Europe: Voir plus loin (in French), Flammarion, 2012 Habermas, J., The Crisis of the European Union: A Response, Polity, 2012 Heise, M, Emerging from the Europe Debt Crisis, Springer, 2013 Hewitt, G., The Lost Continent, Hodder & Stoughton, 2013 Issing, O., The Birth of the Euro, Cambridge University Press, 2008 James, H., Making the European Monetary Union, Harvard University Press, 2012 Legrain, P., European Spring: Why Our Economics and Politics are in a Mess – and How to Put Them Right, CB Books (Amazon), 2014 Marsh, D., Europe’s Deadlock, Yale University Press, 2013 Marsh, D., The Euro: the Battle for a New Global Currency, Yale University Press, updated 2011 O’Toole, F., Ship of Fools: How Stupidity and Corruption Sank the Celtic Tiger, Faber and Faber, 2009 Pisani-Ferry, J., The Euro Crisis and its Aftermath, Oxford University Press, 2014 Panagiotarea, E., Greece in the Euro, ECPR Press, 2013 Pryce, V., Greekonomics, Biteback, updated 2013 Soros, G., The Tragedy of the European Union, Public Affairs, 2014 Tsoukalis, L. and Emmanouilidis, J.

Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security
by Sarah Chayes
Published 19 Jan 2015

The initial result was a country that seemed to shake its historical demons of poverty and backwardness to become a global example of prosperity, fueled by low taxes, low wages, a hyperactive financial services industry, debt, and a property boom. Growth rates hovered above 7 percent. Ireland was hailed as a “Celtic Tiger.” Until it imploded. In 2008 the Irish economy collapsed. Ghosts of the nineteenth-century Great Hunger seemed to awaken, to haunt anew the acres of abandoned houses that disfigured the moors, their doors creaking in a bitter wind, while thousands of Irish took the road of exile, once again, to try to earn their keep abroad.

…

The rising wave of repression against local civil society organizations and against foreign efforts to support them is highlighted in Thomas Carothers and Saskia Brechenmacher, Closing Space: Democracy and Human Rights Support Under Fire (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2014). Epilogue: Self-Reflection 1. Fintan O’Toole, Ship of Fools: How Stupidity and Corruption Sank the Celtic Tiger (New York: Public Affairs, 2010), p. 183. 2. Ibid., p. 217. 3. Ibid., p. 221. 4. “Iceland: Cracks in the Crust,” Economist, December 11, 2008. 5. Sarah Lyall, “Smokestacks in a White Wilderness Divide Iceland,” New York Times, February 4, 2007. 6. Daniel Chartier, The End of Iceland’s Innocence (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2011); and Roger Boyes, Meltdown Iceland (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009). 7.

Paper Promises
by Philip Coggan
Published 1 Dec 2011

Ireland entered the crisis in a good degree of fiscal health; its debt-to-GDP ratio in 2007 was just 25 per cent. Three years later, it was 98 per cent, thanks to the government’s commitment to guarantee the deposits (and senior bonds) of the banking sector. The bank sector was recovering from a lending spree, fuelled by the success of what was known in the 1990s as the ‘Celtic tiger’ economy. Ireland’s credit boom was in part caused by euro-zone membership. The European Central Bank sets interest rates for the region on the basis of average conditions. Inevitably, rates will be too low for some countries and too high for others. Irish GDP grew, in real terms, by 6.2% in 2005, 5.4% in 2006 and 6% in 2007; over the same three years, German GDP grew by 0.8%, 3.2% and 2.5% respectively.

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Business Week Butler, Eamonn Calder, Lendol California Callaghan, Jim Calvin, John Canada Canadian Tar Sands capital controls capital economics capital flows capital ratios carried interest carry trade Carville, James Cassano, Joseph Cato Institute Cayne, Jimmy CDU Party ‘Celtic tiger’ central bank reserves Cesarino, Filippo ‘Chapter’ Charlemagne Charles I, King of England cheques/checks chief executive pay Chile China Churchill, Winston civil war (English) civil war (US) Citigroup clearing union Clientilism Clinton, Bill CNBC collateralized debt obligations commerical banks commercial property commodity prices Compagnie D’Occident comparative advantage conduits confederacy Congdon, Tim Congress, US Connally, John Conservative Party Consols Constantine, Emperor of Rome consumer price inflation continental bonds convergence trade convertibility of gold suspended Coolidge, Calvin copper Cottarelli, Carlo Council of Nicea Cowen, Brian cowrie shells Credit Anstalt credit cards credit crisis of 2007 – 8 credit crunch credit default swaps ‘cross of gold’ speech Cunliffe committee Currency Board currency wars Dante Alighieri David Copperfield Davies, Glyn debasing the currency debit cards debt ceiling debt clock debt deflation spiral debt trap debtors vs creditors, battle defaults defined contribution pension deflation Defoe, Daniel Delors, Jacques Democratic convention of 1896 Democratic Party Democratic Republic of Congo demographics denarii Denmark deposit insurance depreciation of currencies derivatives Deutsche Bank Deutschmark devaluation Dickens, Charles Dionysius of Syracuse Dodd – Frank bill dollar, US Dow Jones Industrial Average drachma Duke, Elizabeth Dumas, Charles Duncan, Richard Durst, Seymour Dutch Republic East Germany East Indies companies Economist Edward III, King of England Edwards, Albert efficient-market theory Egypt Eichengreen, Barry electronic money embedded energy energy efficiency estate agents Estates General Ethelred the Unready euro eurobonds eurodollar market European Central Bank European Commission European Financial Stability Facility European Monetary System European Union eurozone Exchange Rate Mechanism, European exorbitant privilege farmers Federal Reserve Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Federalist party fertility rate ‘fiat money’ Fiji final salary pension Financial Services Authority Financial Times Finland First Bank of the United States First World War fiscal policy fiscal union Fisher, Irving fixed exchange rates floating currencies florin Florio, Jim Ford, Gerald Ford, Henry Ford Motor Company Foreign & Colonial Trust foreign direct investment foreign exchange reserves Forni, Lorenzo Forsyte Saga France Francis I, King of France Franco-Prussian War Franklin, Benjamin French Revolution Friedman, Milton Fuld, Dick futures markets Galbraith, John Kenneth Galsworthy, John GATT Gaulle, Charles de Geithner, Tim General Electric General Motors general strike of 1926 Genghis Khan Genoa conference George V, King of England Germany gilts Gladstone, William Glass – Steagall Act Gleneagles summit Glorious Revolution GMO Gokhale, Jagadeesh gold gold exchange standard gold pool gold standard Goldman Sachs goldsmiths Goodhart, Charles Goodhart’s Law Goschen, George Gottschalk, Jan government bonds government debt Graham, Frank Granada Grantham, Jeremy Great Compression Great Depression Great Moderation Great Society Greece Greenspan, Alan Gresham, Sir Thomas Gresham’s Law Gross, Bill G7 nations G20 meeting Guinea Habsburgs Haiti Haldane, Andrew Hamilton, Alexander Hammurabi of Babylon Havenstein, Rudolf von Hayek, Friedrich Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative hedge funds Henderson, Arthur Henry VIII, King of England Hien Tsung, Chinese emperor Hitler, Adolf Hoar, George Frisbie Hohenzollern monarchy Holy Roman Empire Homer, Sydney Hoover, Herbert House of Representatives houses Hume, David Hussein, Saddam Hutchinson, Thomas Hyde, H.

Unfinished Business
by Tamim Bayoumi

In another trend that was destined to continue in the 2000s, the banking systems started to take off in Ireland and the United Kingdom, the two EU countries that adopted “light touch” supervision. In Ireland, this represented an attempt to repeat the earlier successful strategy of using government policy to attract foreign manufacturing multinationals (in that case through lower tax rates), an approach that had turned Ireland from a poor country into the “Celtic tiger”. In the case of banking, the attractions of low taxes were reinforced by a permissive “light touch” approach to supervision. As a result, Ireland’s banking system ballooned from two-and-a-half times the economy in 1997 to an enormous five times the economy by 2002 as foreign banks entered the market.

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INDEX Abe, Shinzo, (i) ABM AMRO (Dutch bank), (i) accounting standards, (i) Alaska (US state), (i) Amalienborg castle, Denmark, (i) Andreotti, Giulio, (i) Anglo-Irish Bank, (i) Argentina, (i) Asia financial crisis (1990s), (i), (ii), (iii) inflows, (i) asset prices and bubbles, (i), (ii), (iii) Australia banking system, (i) seeks to revive MAP, (i) Austria expansion in assets, (i) trade boost, (i) Baer, Gunter, (i) Bagehot, Walter, (i) Baker, James, (i) Balladur, Edouard, (i) Baltic region: banking crashes, (i) Banco Nazionale di Lavoro, (i) Banco Português de Negócios, (i) Bank of America (US bank) assets, (i) as national bank, (i), (ii) as regulated bank, (i) strongly capitalized, (i) Bank Brussels Lambert, (i) Bank of England handles government finances, (i) stabilizes failing banks, (i) Bank Holding Company Act (US, 1956), (i) Bank for International Settlements, (i), (ii) Bank One Corporation (US bank), (i) Bankers Trust (US bank), (i), (ii) Bangkok International Banking Facility, (i) Bankia (Spanish bank), (i) Banking Act (US, 1933), (i) Bankruptcy Abuse and Consumer Protection Act (US, 2005), (i) banks accounting standards and practices, (i) borrowing rates, (i) capital buffers, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi), (xvii) capital standards, (i), (ii), (iii) collateral in repo deals, (i) commercial and investment separated, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) deposits and loans, (i) dual system (US), (i) equity and total assets, (i) European interest rates, (i) failures and corrective action (US), (i) government support for, (i) herding, (i) internal discipline, (i), (ii), (iii) liquidity standards redefined, (i), (ii) market opportunities, (i) and North Atlantic crisis, (i), (ii) proposed union in Europe, (i) regulation in Europe, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) risk models, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) shadow (US), (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix) system reformed after North Atlantic crisis, (i) US national (interstate), (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) see also central banks Banque de France, (i) Barclays (UK bank) acquires Lehman Brothers post-bankruptcy remnants, (i) backing, (i) competes with major US banks, (i) as LTCM creditor, (i) Baring Brothers (UK bank), (i), (ii) Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and banking regulation, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii) and creation of Euro mega-banks, (i) on internal risk models and capital buffers, (i) and market risk, (i) and measures of capital buffers, (i) membership, (i) and repo market, (i) rules upgraded, (i) and US housing market collapse, (i) and voluntary regulation, (i), (ii) Basel 1 Accord, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) Basel 2 Accord, (i), (ii), (iii) Basel 2.5 system, (i) Basel 3 agreement, (i), (ii) Basel (i), (ii) BBVA (Spanish bank), (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) Bear Stearns (US investment bank) assets, (i) bankruptcy, (i) and European competition, (i), (ii) as investement bank, (i), (ii) lightly capitalized, (i), (ii) merges, (i) as regulated bank, (i) rescued, (i), (ii) and upgrading of Basel (i), (ii) Belgium bank assets, (i) banking expansion, (i), (ii), (iii) banking system (2002), (i), (ii) close economic ties with Germany, (i) debt ratio, (i) in European Coal and Steel Community, (i) and financial crisis, (i) and investment banking, (i) and monetary union, (i), (ii) trade boost, (i) Benelux countries (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg), (i) benign neglect, (i), (ii), (iii) Berlin Wall: falls (1989), (i), (ii), (iii) Bernanke, Ben, (i) Better Regulation Action Plan (UK, 2005), (i) BIS, see Bank for International Settlements Bismarck, Prince Otto von, (i) Black Wednesday (Europe, September 16, 1992), (i) BNP Paribas (French bank) assets reduced, (i) competes with major US banks, (i) expansion, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) suspends Net Asset Value calculation, (i) BNP Paribas ABS EONIA, (i) BNP Paribas ABS EURIBOR, (i) Brandt, Willy, (i) Brazil debts, (i) exchange rate collapse (1999), (i) Bretton Woods break-up of system, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii) conference, (i), (ii), (iii) fixed exchange rate system, (i), (ii), (iii) and monetary policy, (i) Brexit, (i) broker-dealers, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) see also investment banking; USA: shadow banks Brown, Gordon, (i) Bryan, William Jennings, (i) budgets: planning, (i) Buffet, Warren, (i) Bundesbank ceases support for pound and lira, (i), (ii) on cooperation of fiscal and monetary policy, (i) and European exchange rate system, (i), (ii) and European integration, (i), (ii) and European monetary union, (i) and formation of European Central Bank, (i) Frankfurt location, (i) and German reunification, (i) on independence of European Central Bank, (i) raises interest rates, (i) Burns, Arthur, (i) Bush, George W., (i) business cycle, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) California: house price fall, (i) Canada banking system, (i) in Basel Committee, (i) and Louvre Accord, (i) Case Shiller house price index, (i) central banks and effect of inflation, (i), (ii) failure to apologise for crisis, (i) and fiscal expansion, (i) independence, (i), (ii) and inflation targeting, (i) and monetary policy, (i), (ii) and quantitative easing, (i) responsibility for controlling macroeconomic fluctuations, (i) responsibility for delivering low inflation, (i) revive growth and inflation, (i) role, (i) see also European Central Bank Centre for Economic Policy Decisions, (i) Chaebol (South Korea), (i) Charlemagne, Emperor, (i) Chase Manhattan Bank (US bank), (i) Chemical Bank (US bank), (i) China currency depreciation, (i) Euro area trade with, (i) in G20 group, (i) investments in US, (i) joins World Trade Organization, (i), (ii) rise as economic power, (i) Citigroup (US bank), (i), (ii), (iii) assets, (i) banking model, (i) low capital buffer, (i) as national bank, (i) rescued, (i) strongly capitalized, (i) collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), (i), (ii) Collins amendment (US), (i) see also Dodd–Frank Act Commerzbank (German bank), (i), (ii), (iii) Commodity Futures Trading Commission (US), (i) Comptroller of the Currency (US) see Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Congressional Research Service (US), (i) Consolidated Supervision Entities (CSE), (i) Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (US), (i), (ii) Consumer Protection Act (US, 2010), (i) Continental Illinois Bank and Trust Company (US bank) Bank of America acquires, (i) failure (1984), (i), (ii) Copenhagen European leaders summit (1978), (i) copyright, (i) Council of Governors (Committee of Governors of the Central Banks; Europe), (i), (ii) Cox, Christopher, (i) Credit Agricole (French bank), (i), (ii) Credit Suisse First Boston (Swiss/US bank), (i), (ii) Cummings, Christine, (i) currency unions, (i), (ii) see also European Monetary Union Cyprus, (i) dealers see broker-dealers debt flows (international), (i), (ii) debts: repayment, (i) Declaration of Strengthening the Financial System (G20, 2009), (i) Delors, Jacques advocates strong franc, (i) Committee and Report, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii) and common currency, (i) as President of European Commission, (i) Denmark accepts Basel capital rules, (i) and currency fluctuations, (i) invited to join European Economic Community, (i) rejects European Monetary Union, (i), (ii) in Scandinavian monetary union, (i) Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act (US, 1980), (i) deposits: uninsured, (i) derivatives, (i), (ii) Deutsche Bank (German bank) assets reduced, (i) backing, (i) branches abroad, (i) and capital buffers, (i) capital ratios, (i) competes with US major banks, (i) expansion, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) international scope, (i) power, (i), (ii) under pressure to accept reform, (i) Deutsche mark appreciates against dollar, (i) dominance, (i), (ii) revalued, (i) Dexia (French/Belgian bank), (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) Dodd–Frank Act (US, 2010), (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) Doha round of trade talks (2001), (i) dollar appreciates (early 1980s), (i) devalued, (i) and fixed exchange rate system, (i), (ii) as central currency, (i) oil priced in, (i) value pegged to gold, (i) Draghi, Mario, (i), (ii), (iii) Duisenberg, Wim, (i), (ii) dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models (DSGE models), (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) East Germany: Ostmarks converted to Deutsche marks, (i), (ii) eastern Europe and labor market, (i) trade with Euro area, (i) economic models distort policymaking, (i), (ii) see also dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models ‘Economists’ (Euro area): differences from ‘Monetarists’, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) efficient market hypothesis, (i), (ii) Eichengreen, Barry, (i) Emergency Home Finance Act (US, 1970), (i) Emminger, Otmar, (i) employment: and fiscal and monetary policy, (i) Euro area (and Europe) accepts Basel 3 framework, (i) bank assets reduced since 2008, (i) bank internal risk models, (i), (ii) bank lending expansion, (i) bank resolution system (2014), (i) banking system expansion and transformation (1985–2002), (i), (ii), (iii) banking system in 2002, (i), (ii) banking system shrinks since 2009, (i) and banking union, (i) banks fund US housing bubble, (i) banks under ECB supervision, (i) banks’ overseas expansion, (i), (ii), (iii) bond yields, (i), (ii) borrowing rates converge, (i) business cycles, (i) capital gains, (i) causes of financial crisis, (i) causes of regional separation, (i) centralized bank regulation and support, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) core and periphery banks, (i), (ii), (iii) debt breaks, (i) depression, (i) domestic (national) banking, (i) early national banking system (1980), (i) effect of post-crisis changes on banks, (i), (ii) and exchange rate instability, (i) failure to achieve integrated banking, (i) financial reform in, (i) fiscal deficits limited, (i), (ii), (iii) fiscal policies tightened, (i) foreign banks in, (i) foreign trade, (i) growth forecasts, (i) house prices, (i), (ii) inadequate fiscal buffers, (i), (ii) inflation rates, (i) institutional changes, (i) internal exchange rates, (i) investment spending, (i) labor markets and migration, (i) lends to US, (i), (ii) limited support for troubled banks, (i) mega-banks, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi) member countries, (i) monetary (currency) union, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii) move to banking union, (i), (ii), (iii) move to economic integration, (i) need for area-wide bank support system, (i) and origins of World War I, (i) outflows, (i), (ii) output losses, (i), (ii) overbanked, (i) political divisions, (i) post 2002 financial boom, (i) product market, (i) and proposed leverage ratios, (i) residential spending, (i) resolution fund for insolvent banks, (i) responsibility for macroprudential policies, (i) single currency, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) spending boom, (i) stock market fall from 2007, (i), (ii) surveillance of members reduced, (i) trade balance, (i) universal bank expansion in US, (i), (ii) unprepared for crisis, (i) Euro (currency) as boost to integrated economy, (i), (ii) introduced (1999), (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) European Banking Authority (EBA), (i) European Central Bank (ECB) agreed by Delors Committee, (i) aided by expansion, (i) and bank supervision, (i), (ii), (iii) committed to low inflation, (i) effect of, (i) financial supervision centralized in, (i) and Greek debt crisis, (i) guiding principles, (i) ignores US financial problems, (i) injects liquidity into markets, (i) Joint Supervisory Team, (i) and Maastricht Treaty, (i) and move to banking union, (i) non-adoption of leverage ratio, (i) policy rate, (i) raises rates, (i) vets European Stability Mechanism, (i) weakness, (i) European Coal and Steel Community, (i) European Commission Brussels location, (i) confederated structure, (i) created, (i) European Capital Adequacy Directive, (i) and European integration, (i) Monetary Committee, (i) plans for integrated banking system, (i) and proposed monetary union, (i), (ii) rules on excessive debts, (i) Second Banking Directive, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) and Stability and Growth Pact, (i) vets European Stability Mechanism, (i) European Community Council of Ministers (ECOFIN), (i) European Council, (i), (ii) European Currency Unit (ECU), (i), (ii) see also Euro European Economic Community Common Agricultural Policy, (i) currency fluctuations, (i) customs union, (i) fixed exchange rates, (i) formed, (i), (ii) and free movement of capital, (i) see also European Union European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism, (i) see also European Stability Mechanism European Financial Stability Facility, (i) see also European Stability Mechanism European Monetary Cooperation Fund, (i), (ii) European Monetary Fund, (i), (ii) European Monetary Union (EMU) and bank deposit insurance, (i) design, (i) and fall of interest rates, (i), (ii), (iii) future, (i), (ii) and increasing economic integration, (i) initial members, (i) long-term expectation, (i) Maastricht Treaty initiates, (i) positive effects, (i), (ii) principles and flaws, (i) reduces risk premiums, (i) trade and single currency, (i) European Reserve Fund, (i) European Stability Mechanism (ESM), (i), (ii) European System of Central Banks (ESCB), (i), (ii), (iii) European Union alterations at times of distress, (i) and banking regulation, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) commitment to closer (federated) union, (i) economy contracts, (i) and free movement of goods, services, labor and capital, (i) implements Basel (i), (ii) integrated banking system, (i), (ii) name adopted, (i), (ii) single currency (Euro), (i), (ii) on supervision of investment banking groups, (i) see also European Economic Community Evian, Switzerland, (i) Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) Balladur proposes reforms, (i) and Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate system, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) crisis (1992-3), (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) and Delors Committee, (i), (ii) and German reunification, (i) introduced, (i), (ii), (iii) suffers from speculative attacks, (i) exchange rates determined by private markets, (i) Europe introduces, (i) and floating exchange rate system, (i) and international debt flows, (i) Fannie Mae (government-sponsored enterprise, US) capital buffers, (i) collapses, (i) dominates securitization market, (i) expansion, (i) formed, (i) issues mortgage-backed securities, (i), (ii), (iii) nationalized, (i), (ii) profits squeezed, (i) upper loan limits, (i) Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC, US), (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act (US, 1991), (i) Federal Home Loans Banks (US), (i) Federal Reserve Bank see United States Federal Reserve Bank financial crises causes and effects, (i) and regulation reform, (i) see also North Atlantic crisis financial markets see markets (financial) Finançial Services Agency (UK), (i) Financial Stability Board (earlier Forum), (i) Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC, US), (i), (ii) Finland escapes crisis, (i) expansion in assets, (i) trade boost, (i) fiscal policy, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) FleetBoston Financial Corporation (US bank), (i) Ford, Gerald, (i) Fortis (Belgium/Netherlands bank), (i), (ii) France agricultural lobby, (i) aims for integrated Europe, (i) bank assets, (i) bank branches in other countries, (i) banking expansion, (i), (ii), (iii) banking system (2002), (i) banking system nationalized under President Mitterrand, (i), (ii) close economic ties with Germany, (i) differences with Germany over monetary union, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii) and ERM crisis (1992), (i) in European Coal and Steel Community, (i) and European exchange rate system, (i), (ii) favours political control of central bank, (i) and financial crisis, (i) franc fort policy, (i) high inflation, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) interest rates, (i) internal risk models, (i) leaves and rejoins snake, (i) and investment banking, (i) outflows, (i) reduces fiscal deficit, (i) and single currency, (i), (ii), (iii) status in European Commission, (i) suspends sanctions for high fiscal deficits, (i) Freddie Mac (government-sponsored enterprise, US) capital buffers, (i) dominates securitization market, (i) expansion, (i) mortgage-backed securities, (i), (ii) nationalized, (i), (ii) profitability, (i) upper loan limits, (i) Friedman, Milton, (i) funding corporations, (i) G7 leaders’ summits, (i) Hokkaido Toyako (2008), (i) Venice (1987), (i) G20 group Chengdu (2016), (i) London (2009), (i), (ii) Pittsburg (2009), (i) and fiscal stimulus, (i), (ii) and Financial Stability Board, (i) and policy cooperation, (i), (ii) and reform of banking system, (i) regular meetings, (i) Geithner, Timothy, (i) General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), (i) General Motors: share value, (i) Genscher, Hans-Dietrich, (i), (ii) Germany accepts monetary union, (i) aims for integrated Europe, (i) bank assets, (i) bank branches in other countries, (i) banking expansion, (i), (ii), (iii) banking system (2002), (i) controls inflation, (i) debts move to, (i) differences with France over monetary union, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii) dominance in monetary union, (i) Dutch exports to, (i) empire founded (1871), (i) enforces rules, (i) and European exchange rate system, (i) export-led economy, (i) favours independent central bank, (i) favours national bank supervision, (i) and financial crisis, (i) foreign banks in, (i) interest rates, (i), (ii), (iii) internal risk models, (i), (ii) Landesbanken, (i) and ERM crisis, (i) and investment banking, (i) reluctance to support periphery countries, (i) response to financial crisis, (i) reunification following fall of Berlin Wall, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) and single currency, (i), (ii) small banks, (i) and snake, (i) status in European Commission, (i) strength of currency, (i) supply chain with eastern Europe, (i) suspends sanctions for high fiscal deficits, (i) tax reforms under Louvre Accord, (i) and value of currency, (i) warns of effect of Greek debt, (i) Giscard d’Estaing, Valérie, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) Glass–Steagall Act (US, 1933), (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii) Glicenstein, Gilles, (i) globalization, (i), (ii), (iii) gold and Long Depression, (i) standard, (i), (ii) and US dollar, (i), (ii) Gold Pool, (i) Goldman Sachs (US investment bank) applies for bank holding company status, (i) assets, (i) becomes regulated bank, (i) competes as investment bank, (i) and competition with European banks, (i) lightly capitalized, (i) as LTCM creditor, (i) as shadow bank, (i) government borrowing, (i) government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs, US), (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) Graham–Leach–Bliley Act (US, 1999), (i) Great Depression (1930s), (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) great moderation, the, (i), (ii) Greece accepts Basel capital rules, (i) adopts Euro, (i) fall in interest rate, (i) in currency union periphery, (i) economic recovery program, (i) in Euro area, (i) European aid to, (i), (ii) excessive borrowing and debts, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii) expansion in assets, (i) financial crisis in, (i), (ii), (iii) fiscal mismanagement, (i) high interest rates, (i) joins Euro area, (i) loans from other countries, (i) product market improvements, (i) reduces fiscal deficit, (i) role of central government, (i) Greenspan, Alan on bank supervision and regulation, (i), (ii) on bank regulation, (i) favors reform of Basel (i), (ii) and predictability of policies, (i) on risks posed by investment banks, (i) The Age of Turbulence, (i) Group of Ten, (i) GSEs, see government-sponsored enterprises Hawaii, (i) HBV (German bank), (i) hedge funds, (i), (ii) helicopter money, (i) Hoechst (corporation), (i) homo economicus, (i), (ii) Hong Kong: and Asian crisis, (i) house purchases and prices, (i), (ii) see also United States of America households: in economic theory, (i) houses: investment value, (i) Housing and Urban Development Act (US, 1968), (i) HSBC (UK bank): in US, (i) Hugo, Victor, (i) human beings fads and crazes, (i) sociability, (i), (ii) IFRB (accounting standards), (i) IKB Deutsche Industriebank AG (German bank), (i), (ii) Illinois (US state): state banking regulations, (i) incomes: stagnation, (i) Indonesia, (i), (ii), (iii) inflation rates, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii) information technology and financial procedures, (i) and investment banks, (i) ING (Netherlands bank) accepts government capital injection, (i) expansion, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) Institute for International Finance, (i) insurance: and mortgage-backed assets, (i) interest rates and borrowing costs, (i) capped in US, (i), (ii), (iii) and exchange rate, (i) and inflation, (i) reduced to zero, (i) International Monetary Fund (IMF) and perceived anti-China measures, (i) on benefits from open capital markets, (i) and European Stability Mechanism loans, (i) and exchange rate, (i) funds increased, (i) support in Asia crisis, (i) loans available, (i) as model for European Monetary Fund, (i) output gaps, (i) resources fall behind increase in world trade, (i) on size of global economy, (i) international monetary system debt flows, (i) history of crises, (i) International Swaps and Derivatives Association, (i) Intesa Sanpaolo (Italian bank), (i), (ii), (iii) investment banking see also shadow banking benefit from nontraditional cash deposits, (i) funding, (i) and hedge funds, (i) and information technology, (i) regulation, (i) role and conduct, (i) Ireland accepts Basel capital rules, (i) bankers in, (i) banking expansion, (i), (ii) borrowing excesses, (i) as ‘Celtic tiger’, (i) and currency fluctuations, (i) in currency union periphery, (i) in Euro area, (i) European aid to, (i) invited to join European Economic Community, (i) expansion in bank assets, (i) financial crisis in, (i), (ii), (iii) foreign investments in, (i) ‘light touch’ regulation, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) reduces fiscal deficit, (i) successful effect of reforms, (i) Italy borrowing interest rate, (i) commercial loans, (i) connected firms in, (i) in currency union periphery, (i) debt ratio, (i) in Exchange Rate Mechanism, (i) expansion in bank assets, (i) financial crisis in, (i), (ii) high interest rates, (i) housing boom, (i) inflation rises, (i), (ii) joins European Coal and Steel Community, (i) large outflows, (i) leaves Exchange Rate Mechanism, (i) low growth, (i) and monetary union, (i) product market improvements, (i) reduces fiscal deficit, (i) supports suspension of sanctions for high fiscal deficits, (i) ten-year bonds, (i) see also lira ITT (corporation), (i) Japan banking system, (i) in Basel Committee, (i) controls inflation, (i) debts outflow to, (i), (ii) depression, (i) economic growth, (i) floating exchange rates, (i) and Louvre Accord, (i) Prime Minister Abe’s economic reforms (‘Abenomics’), (i), (ii), (iii) JP Morgan Chase (US bank), (i) acquires Bear Sterns, (i) assets, (i) banking model, (i) as national bank, (i), (ii) Keynes, John Maynard, (i), (ii) King, Mervyn, (i), (ii), (iii) Kohl, Helmut, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) Kohn, Donald L., (i) labor markets: Euro area versus US, (i) Lamfalussy, Alexandre, (i) Larosière, Jacques de, (i) Latin America: debt crisis, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) Latin League (1865), (i), (ii) Lawrence, T.E.

Extreme Money: Masters of the Universe and the Cult of Risk
by Satyajit Das
Published 14 Oct 2011

Unlikely Centers Ireland, historically a poor, agrarian economy, reinvented itself. In the 1970s, Ireland entered the European Union (EU) (then known as the European Economic Community). Influx of EU money, a well-educated population, low taxes, limited regulations, and business-friendly governments transformed Ireland into the Celtic tiger. In the late 1980s, Ireland established a financial center in Dublin—creatively named the International Financial Centre. Continental banks, especially from Germany, set up units in Dublin, raising money that was then channeled into various investments. Money flowed in and out, and profits were transferred back to the parent.

…

Having doubled in price in a few years, a modest family home in Dublin cost the same as one in Beverly Hills. A three-bedroom penthouse in the Elysian, the tallest building in Ireland, complete with Porsche SE taps and views over Cork, cost €1.8 million ($2.6 million). Intoxicated at the success of the “Celtic tiger” and the country’s double-digit growth, the Irish splashed out, behaving like “a poor person who had won the lottery.” As novelist Anne Enright expressed it: “We’re very narcisstic...[believing] our boom was better than anyone else’s.”20 Now, house prices fell by 50 percent and the cranes that dotted Dublin’s skyline stood idle.

…

W., 65 Bush, George W., 44, 341, 346 2001 tax cuts, 298 business schools, 308-313 bonuses, 317-318 compensation, 313-320 BusinessWeek, 170 buy and flick, 139 Byrd, Richard Evelyn, 256 Byrne, David, 46 Byrne, Rhonda, 45 C Caesar, 295 calculators, 122 call options, 209 Volkswagen (VW), 257 Callan, Erin, 288, 329 Calomiris, Charles, 273 Canadian dollars, 21 Canary Wharf, 79 Cantor, Eddie, 338 capital definition of, 280 flows, 205 gains, 160 injections into banks, 348-350 introductions, 247 leveraged, 244 Modigliani-Miller propositions, 119 structure arbitrage, 242 velocity of, 69 capital asset pricing model (CAPM), 117 capitalism, 102 Capitalism: A Love Story, 165 Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 297 CAPM (capital asset pricing model), 173 Capra, Frank, 65 carceral continuum, 312 careers certifications, 309-310 finance, 308-313 bonuses, 317-318 compensation, 313-320 Carlyle Group, The, 154, 163, 318 Carlyle, Thomas, 102 Carnegie Mellon University, 119 Carr, Fred, 145 Carroll, Lewis, 31 CARS (certificate for automobile receivables), 173 Carter, Jimmy, 74, 364 Caruso-Cabrera, Michelle, 95 Casablanca, 77, 311 Case, Steve, 58 cash flow, 138 forecasting, 160 General Electric (GE), 61 cash for clunkers, 348 Cassano, Joseph, 232 Cat’s Cradle, 339 catastrophe risk, 232 Catillo, Bernal Díaz del, 131 Cavendish Laboratory (Cambridge, England), 101 Cayman Islands, 220 Cayne, James, 318 CBOs (collateralized bond obligations), 173 CDOs (collateralized debt obligations), 173, 176 defaults of, 284 celebrity central bankers, age of, 297-300 celebrity financiers, 324-326 Celtic tiger, 83. See also Ireland Centaurus Energy, 319 Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP), 131 Centlivre, Susannah, 75 central banks, 309 age of celebrity central bankers, 297-300 dissenters, 300-302 regulations, 279-281 risk transfers, 281-282 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 310 CEOs (chief executive officers) earnings, 323-324 knowledge of business operations, 292-293 Cerberus, 162 certifications, finance, 309-310 CFA (certified financial analyst), 309 Chains or Chain Link, 269 chains, mortgage, 183 Chancellor, Edward, 161 Chanos, Jim, 161 chaos theory, 274 Chase Manhattan Bank, 79 Chassagne-Montrachet, 304 Cheney, Dick, 265 Chesterton, G.K., 226 Chettle, Geoff, 228 Chicago, 104-105 Chicago Board of Option Exchange (CBOE), 122 Chicago Interpretation, the, 104, 130 Chicxulub crater, 339 Chiemgauer, 35 China, 82 Chinese Communist Party, 350 Chinese paper, 144 Chinese renminbi, 21 Chinese walls, 66 debt, purchase of American dollars, 87 as a financial center, 84-85 global credit process, 88 growth of, 86 relationship with America, 87 slowdown in economic activity, 350-351 China Aviation Oil (Singapore) Corporation, 56 Chinalco, 59 chits, 22 A Chorus Line, 164 Christianity, 65 Christie’s, 323 Chrysler, 162 Building, 79 purchase by Fiat, 344 Cioffi, Ralph, 191, 365 circulation of money, 32 Citadel Funds, 196, 241, 256 Citibank, 71 Citicorp Venture Capital, 154 Citicorp, merger of with Travelers, 75 Cities Services, 137 CitiGroup, 41, 75-77, 165, 290, 315 Center, 79 Todd Thompson, 93 City, the (London), 79 CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey, and South Africa), 91 civilization, 38 Clarke, David, 159 Clarkson, Brian, 284 clickety-clicks, 39.

The Rough Guide to Ireland
by Clements, Paul
Published 2 Jun 2015

By 2014, the unemployment rate had fallen to 11 percent and the country recorded a year-on-year economic growth rate of 7.7 percent, the highest in the Eurozone. Seasoned observers of Ireland’s boom-and-bust economy, however, could only wince as newspapers coined the term “The Celtic Phoenix”. THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CELTIC TIGER The 1990s witnessed a remarkable economic boom in the Republic, leading to the country’s acquisition of the soubriquet Celtic Tiger. Ireland’s emergence resulted from a combination of huge European Union subsidies (especially to farmers) and massive tax concessions to multinational companies, encouraging them to site operations in Dublin and elsewhere.

…

Gone – or certainly on its way out – is the image of a conservative, introspective, dourly rural nation, while the infamous unrest and violence have, mercifully, faded away. An outward-looking Ireland has stepped forward, energized by rejuvenated cities no longer weighed down by the Troubles, where the fresh ideas introduced by immigrants and returnees during the Celtic Tiger years of the 1990s are maturing nicely. Of course, it’s not called the Emerald Isle for nothing and Ireland’s physical appeal endures clear and true as a jewel – but it’s by no means a blanket of green. From the Burren’s grey limestone pavement and the black peat bogs of the Midlands (where some of the prehistoric gold ornaments on show in Dublin’s National Museum were dug up) to Connemara’s gold- and purple-tinged mountains, Ireland’s smouldering – even unnerving – good looks can send a shiver down your spine.

…

The most obvious evidence of reinvigoration in the city centre is the Temple Bar area, though the original intention to develop a Parisian-style quarter of ateliers and arts centres soon fell foul of the moneygrubbers, and the area is now home to a plethora of kitch tourist bars and fast-food chains. East of the centre, reconstruction continues in the city’s docklands. The so-called Celtic Tiger years of the late 1990s and early 2000s saw the wealth of the city grow exponentially, as a property boom drove the demolition of derelict or vacant buildings to make way for new apartments and offices. Another legacy of the boom was the arrival of migrants, particularly from Africa and Eastern Europe, which, together with the city’s longer-standing Chinese community, saw Dublin gradually inch towards multiculturalism.

Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century
by Mark Leonard
Published 4 Sep 2000

In just ten years Finland has moved from being a sleepy agricultural backwater – dependent on the Soviet Union for most of its markets – to leading the world in IT and mobile phones (with Nokia making up over 30 per cent of the global mobile phones market, and Linux as the only real global challenger to Microsoft).3 Ireland has gone through a similar process, leaving its agricultural past behind to become the Celtic Tiger. Holland and Denmark have had some of the best job-creation records over the last decade through the growth of part-time jobs in the service sector, higher female employment, and wage moderation. These are the economies that are already being copied by other Europeans: Germany has developed its Agenda 2010 proposals, France has launched an ambitious programme of structural reforms, while the new members from Poland to Estonia have modernized their economies at a startling pace.4 Europe’s transformative power could one day spread to the economic world.

Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World
by Michael Lewis
Published 2 Oct 2011

There are many theories: the elimination of trade barriers, the decision to grant free public higher education, a low corporate tax rate introduced in the 1980s, which turned Ireland into a tax haven for foreign corporations. Maybe the most intriguing was offered by a pair of demographers at Harvard, David E. Bloom and David Canning, in a 2003 paper called “Contraception and the Celtic Tiger.” Bloom and Canning argued that a major cause of the Irish boom was a dramatic increase in the ratio of working-age to non–working-age Irishmen, brought about by a crash in the Irish birthrate. This in turn had been mainly driven by Ireland’s decision, in 1979, to legalize birth control. That is, there was an inverse correlation between a nation’s fidelity to the Vatican’s edicts and its ability to climb out of poverty: out of the slow death of the Irish Catholic Church arose an economic miracle.

The Euro and the Battle of Ideas
by Markus K. Brunnermeier , Harold James and Jean-Pierre Landau
Published 3 Aug 2016

FIGURE 9.3. Schematic Representation of Fund Flows between Germany and Spain This stylized example can help us understand the emergence of property bubbles in Ireland and Spain. Ireland enjoyed strong export growth from the late 1980s, accelerating in the mid-1990s, when the Irish economy earned its “Celtic Tiger” moniker. This export growth translated into strong economic activity and a general sense of economic security among Irish households. This, together with low nominal and real interest rates as a result of monetary union, resulted in a dramatic expansion of housing demand and, with a slight lag, an expansion of housing supply.

…

Complacency resulted in the banks fueling the late stage of an obvious construction bubble with massive foreign borrowing, leaving them exposed to solvency and liquidity risks which in past times would have been inconceivable.”25 Although many had warned that the banking sector might prove insolvent in the face of a downturn in housing prices, this eventuality was not adequately forecasted by relevant economic actors. On top of that, debt overhang prevented the recovery of growth, and as Jörg Asmussen (then a member of the executive board of the ECB) pointed out in a speech given in Dublin, the Celtic Tiger also suffered from a serious lack of competitiveness.26 The Irish government stepped in to save the financial sector: it decided on September 30, 2008, to guarantee (for two years) bank liabilities and later committed to large recapitalization programs. These unilaterally taken decisions were not approved by the ECB, which expressed its disapproval in two published opinions in October 2008.

I.O.U.: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay
by John Lanchester
Published 14 Dec 2009

The reason it didn’t was that the whole area had grown so fast, and with so little planning and attention to sustainability, that the infrastructure had broken down—in this case, the water-treatment infrastructure. That should have been a glaring indicator of the crisis which was about to engulf the “Celtic Tiger,” thanks to the carelessness with which its politicians had mismanaged the good years. To some of us who know and love Ireland, it was always a bad sign that the Irish economic miracle was named after an animal which doesn’t exist. Only a few months on from that, and Ireland was in the worst economic contraction of any developed country since the Great Depression.

Found in Translation: How Language Shapes Our Lives and Transforms the World
by Nataly Kelly and Jost Zetzsche
Published 1 Oct 2012

In other words, no Irish-language literature would have meant—you guessed it—no Shakespeare, at least, not as we know him. So what will the fate of this language of such historical importance ultimately be? “Irish is not dying, but evolving with the times,” McLoughlin explains. He believes that during the Celtic Tiger years, many Irish people forgot about their culture and what made them unique as a people. “The argument that Irish is a dying language is one of ignorance,” McLoughlin points out. “It’s no longer the language of fishermen and small farmers in the west of Ireland, but the language of college students, academics, and television personalities,” he notes.

Social Democratic America
by Lane Kenworthy
Published 3 Jan 2014

In the past half century, a number of national models have gone in and out of fashion, first surging to the front and then falling back: Sweden (“middle way”) in the 1960s, Germany (“modell Deutschland”) and Japan (“Japan Inc.”) in the 1970s and 1980s, the United States (“great American jobs machine”) in the 1980s and 1990s, the Netherlands (“Dutch miracle”) in the 1990s, Denmark (“flexicurity”) and Ireland (“Celtic tiger”) in the 1990s and 2000s. Some later rebounded, such as Sweden in the 2000s and Germany in the 2010s. Economic growth is valuable. Yet for affluent democratic countries, we know very little about what causes faster or slower growth. Should we throw up our hands in despair? Not necessarily. The upside is that policies and institutions aimed at other outcomes, such as security and fairness, seldom doom the economy to stagnation.

Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle
by Dan Senor and Saul Singer
Published 3 Nov 2009

National Bureau of Economic Research, October 2006. http://imio.haag.berkley.edu/williamsonseminar/scharfstein041207.pdf. Groysberg, Boris, Tal Riesenfeld, and Eliot Sherman. “Israeli Special Forces: Selection Strategy.” Harvard Business School Case 409-041, September 2008. Case Library, Harvard Business Publishing. Haider, Don. “Ireland: Celtic Tiger.” Harvard Business School Case KEL-141, January 2005. Case Library, Harvard Business Publishing. Handwerker, Haim. “U.S. Entrepreneur Makes Aliyah Seeking ‘Next Big Invention.’ ” Haaretz, August 28, 2008. Hari, Johann. “The Dark Side of Dubai.” Independent, April 7, 2009. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html.

The Inequality Puzzle: European and US Leaders Discuss Rising Income Inequality
by Roland Berger , David Grusky , Tobias Raffel , Geoffrey Samuels and Chris Wimer
Published 29 Oct 2010

The Nordic countries are well known for their more egalitarian societies and their Gini scores are indeed correspondingly below the OECD Gini average. However, since the mid-1980s, with the exception of Denmark, they have recorded among the highest increases in Gini coefficients among all OECD countries. Until the financial crisis, Ireland’s rapid growth, more akin to a developing country, earned it the Celtic Tiger moniker. Rapidly developing countries typically experience rising inequality, yet over the same period when all Scandinavian countries saw increasing inequality, Ireland experienced decreasing inequality despite high growth. However, we should be quite cautious when comparing country performances in areas such as inequality because we need more consistent information to make appropriate comparisons.

Losing Control: The Emerging Threats to Western Prosperity
by Stephen D. King
Published 14 Jun 2010

The success of the developed world partly rests, then, on freedom of expression and the rule of law (particularly with regard to the establishment of legally enforceable property rights, a point well understood by Adam Smith: the incentive to develop a new product is much reduced if there’s no patent system, for example).14 Meanwhile, contraception has limited population growth in the developed world and, hence, has allowed ever-increasing income to be shared out among the lucky few. Ireland’s Celtic Tiger boom in the 1980s and 1990s was achieved in part because women were able to go out to work rather than staying at home to endure far too many births: contraception can also play a big role in creating economic opportunity. As Sir Isaac Newton might have said, we benefit economically from standing on the shoulders of centuries of creative, inventive and innovative giants.

How to Speak Money: What the Money People Say--And What It Really Means
by John Lanchester
Published 5 Oct 2014

The thinking behind it went something like this: Ireland had been bankrupted by its government’s stupid decision to stand behind the debts of the country’s insolvent banks. The consequences in terms of economic collapse were already severe—job losses, pay cuts, tax rises, emigration, a spike in the suicide rate—and were likely to become more so. The economic miracle of the Celtic Tiger had turned into a disaster. Ireland was in a strange mood, a mixture of resignation and fury, alternating between the two feelings so quickly it was almost as if there was a bizarre new hybrid emotion: blazingly furious philosophical resignation. In that atmosphere Cook and McWilliams—McWilliams having been one of the very few Irish economists to have predicted the crash—decided that since the only two things you could really do about the current predicament were laugh or cry, why not laugh?

The Great Tax Robbery: How Britain Became a Tax Haven for Fat Cats and Big Business
by Richard Brooks
Published 2 Jan 2014

Again, the tax result could be put down to standard techniques including buying beans from a Starbucks company in Switzerland and paying royalties to use the global brand through a related Dutch company.‌15 American companies operating in the UK have long found tax relief not just across the North Sea, but the Irish one too. Tax poaching was always one of the Celtic Tiger’s main stripes. It started in the 1990s with a 10% tax rate in a special financial services incentive zone in Dublin’s regenerated docks area, combined with other breaks for high-tech companies and then, from 2003, an across-the-board 12.5% tax rate. Ostensibly aimed at luring companies to employ people in the country, the tax breaks have proved too good to resist for many companies seeking simply to divert profits as much as establish any real business.

The Data Revolution: Big Data, Open Data, Data Infrastructures and Their Consequences
by Rob Kitchin
Published 25 Aug 2014

Kitchin, R., Gleeson, J. and Dodge, M. (2012a) ‘Unfolding mapping practices: a new epistemology for cartography’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 38(3): 480–96. Kitchin, R., O’Callaghan, C., Boyle, M., Gleeson J. and Keaveney, K. (2012b) ‘Placing neoliberalism: the rise and fall of Ireland’s Celtic Tiger’, Environment and Planning A, 44: 1302–26. Koops, B.J. (2011) ‘Forgetting footprints, shunning shadows: a critical analysis of the “right to be forgotten” in big data practice’, SCRIPTed, 8(3): 229–56. Kourtit, K., Nijkamp, P. and Arribas-Bel, D. (2012) ‘Smart cities perspective – a comparative European study by means of self-organizing maps’, Innovation, 25(2): 229–46.

I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan
by Steve Coogan
Published 1 Sep 2011

I am stronger, wiser and happy. People assume the episode must have profoundly affected me but I can honestly say it’s not something I ever think about. Move on. (You may now remove your Kevlar body armour.) 157 Press play on Track 30. 158 I’ve got a lot of time for Ireland. Its economy was known as the Celtic Tiger, which I loved. Then, of course, it hit the wall, much like that sleeping dog on YouTube. Very funny. Just type in ‘sleeping dog runs into wall’. If you don’t watch it about ten times back-to-back, there’s something wrong with you. I also like sneezing panda, keyboard cat, dramatic chipmunk, skateboarding dog, otters holding hands and ‘Don’t Taze Me, Bro’. 159 Each to his own and all that, but the idea of a man looking at my rock-hard buttocks and salivating makes me want to run home and dead-lock the doors.

The Virgin Way: Everything I Know About Leadership
by Richard Branson
Published 8 Sep 2014

Unlike both these very successful gentlemen I have always believed there are tremendous upsides to a more conciliatory approach to life and business – an attitude that even Michael O’Leary is now publicly proclaiming he wants his much-maligned airline to assume, although it remains to be seen whether or not this particular Celtic Tiger can change his stripes. I’m not a betting man, but if I were, I’m not at all sure I would put money on this one! While I wouldn’t be foolish enough to pretend that Virgin’s three airlines have never had passengers with valid complaints or that I have never fired anyone, I can honestly say that, unlike Mr Trump, the latter is not something I have ever taken the slightest pleasure in doing.

The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters
by Rose George
Published 13 Oct 2008

Crypto was a big cuddly version of a parasite called cryptosporidium, a disease-causing protozoa—a single-celled, amoeba-like organism—that can travel in feces. For five months and counting, Crypto and his billions of cousins had been the reason that a rich and developed city in a rich and developed country had no drinking water. A cultural center of Europe, in a land wealthy enough to be nicknamed the Celtic Tiger, was forced to issue boil-water notices more familiar in places of poverty and dust where children die young. It had begun in early March, with reports of persistent stomachaches and diarrhea. There were hospitalizations, of the vulnerable (the old, the young, the immuno-suppressed) and there was bewilderment as to the cause.

Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea
by Mark Blyth
Published 24 Apr 2013

Ireland reduced its gross government debt-to-GNP ratio from 112 percent in 1986 to 25 percent in 2007, and its net debt to GDP in 2007 stood at a mere 12 percent.27 It was able to do this by exporting to countries that were expanding and by up-skilling its workforce to take advantage of the influx of multinational corporations that were keen to use Ireland, with its English-speaking workforce and low corporate tax rates, as a gateway to a single-market Europe. Ireland’s GNP rose significantly, as did wages, boosting both consumption and tax revenues. The growth of this so-called Celtic Tiger economy during the late 1990s encouraged more people to look to property as an investment, and in doing so Ireland generated a massive banking accident waiting to happen, without a Fannie, a Freddie, or anything like them being present. Part of what stoked the bubble in Ireland had also affected Greece: the bond-buying activities of major European banks, which gave the periphery cheap money, combined with low interest rates set by the ECB that translated into zero, if not negative real rates, in Ireland and Spain from 2000 onward.

Immigration worldwide: policies, practices, and trends
by Uma Anand Segal , Doreen Elliott and Nazneen S. Mayadas
Published 19 Jan 2010

The significant increase in the number of labor migrants coming to Ireland since the mid-1990s is largely the result of the demand for workers during a period of economic growth commonly known as the ‘‘Celtic Tiger.’’ Thus Quinn (2006a, p. 5) notes that ‘‘the growth in immigration and the drop in emigration experienced in Ireland are trends that are mainly attributable to domestic economic development. It is now accepted that the boom, in what became known as the era of the ‘‘Celtic Tiger,’’ resulted in real growth rates in excess of 8 percent per annum during the second half of the 1990s and an increase of nearly 400,000 jobs, or almost 30 percent, from 1.3 million in 1996 to 1.7 million in 2001.’’

Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World
by Adam Tooze
Published 31 Jul 2018

Santos, “El Diluvio: The Spanish Banking Crisis, 2008–2012,” manuscript, Columbia Business School, Columbia University (2017). 44. Santos, “Antes del Diluvio.” 45. I. Jack, “Ireland: The Rise and the Crash,” New York Review of Books, November 11, 2010, reviewing F. O’Toole, Ship of Fools: How Stupidity and Corruption Sank the Celtic Tiger (London: Faber and Faber, 2009). 46. P. De Grauwe, “How to Embed the Eurozone in a Political Union,” Vox, June 17, 2010. For a devastating review of the blindspots of conventional theories of optimum currency area and their insistence on fiscal integration see Schelkle, Political Economy of Monetary Solidarity, 174–179.

…

Melin and P. Billiet, “Le scandale Fortis, une histoire belge,” La Revue, January 16, 2009. 63. C. Schömann-Finc, “Skandalbank HRE: Wie Ackermann Merkel in der Rettungsnacht über den Tisch zog,” Focus Money, September 16, 2013. 64. F. O’Toole, Ship of Fools: How Stupidity and Corruption Sank the Celtic Tiger (London: Faber & Faber, 2009). 65. S. Carswell, Anglo Republic: Inside the Bank That Broke Ireland (London: Penguin, 2011). 66. Darling, Back from the Brink, 143. 67. Ibid., 144. 68. Gammelin and Löw, Europas Strippenzieher, 59. 69. L. Phillips, “France and Germany at Odds over EU ‘Paulson Plan,’” EU Observer, October 2, 2008. 70.

The Health Gap: The Challenge of an Unequal World
by Michael Marmot
Published 9 Sep 2015

It is not too melodramatic to say that policies of austerity are leading people to take their own lives, and also to kill each other. Terminal 2 at Dublin airport is somehow symbolic of what Ireland has been through. The terminal is a wonderful testament to a once booming economy, built to be suitable for a Celtic Tiger, an economy that was going places. When I travel through Terminal 2 now, its echoing halls seem to represent the downside, the hollowness of the promise that the people of Ireland could be rich by lending each other money they didn’t have.8 A taxi driver shakes your hand, so pleased is he to have any business.

The Levelling: What’s Next After Globalization
by Michael O’sullivan
Published 28 May 2019

Ireland’s overheated property market is one area where it can learn from other small countries. In the past it has found it too easy to copy the policy model of the United Kingdom and has ignored the lessons of other small open countries (notably, the Scandinavian banking crisis of the 1990s came to the notice of Irish policy makers only after the collapse of the Celtic Tiger). Brexit will, naturally, change this. As regards housing, Ireland as a country still needs to decide that “houses are for living in, not for speculation,” to quote a recent remark from China’s president.8 It must then act accordingly from a fiscal and regulatory point of view. A further challenge is to build up the domestic economic sector.

Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age
by Brad Smith and Carol Ann Browne
Published 9 Sep 2019

Tax incentives and an English-speaking workforce first drew companies to the Emerald Isle. The country then used its membership in the European Union and its welcoming spirit to attract people from across Europe and then from around the world to live and work there, especially in the Dublin area. It fed the Celtic Tiger and sustained a new generation of prosperity for the small country. At Microsoft we took pride in our connections and contributions to this growth. Back in the 1980s, our European customers installed our software from CD-ROMs, which were manufactured in Ireland. But as software transitioned to the cloud, the Irish realized that the CD business would eventually vanish.

A History of Future Cities
by Daniel Brook
Published 18 Feb 2013

The apotheosis of this trend would come in 2009, when the dictator of Azerbaijan amassed nine waterfront mansions during a two-week, $44 million buying spree—all purchased in the name of his eleven-year-old son. With the unprecedented land reform in place, the global real estate consulting firm Jones Lang LaSalle touted Dubai, along with Dublin and Las Vegas, as its “World Winning Cities” for 2002. The report put Dubai on global investors’ maps alongside the better-known capital of the Celtic Tiger and the Mojave Desert outpost that was then the fastest-growing city in the world’s largest economy. All three cities experienced massive booms, but Dubai’s was the most explosive. If early St. Petersburg was a Renaissance perspective drawing brought to life on a marshy tabula rasa, Dubai was a real-life SimCity, a fantastical metropolis that looked as if it had magically leapt from an architect’s laptop running the latest computer-assisted design software out onto the pristine desert.

European Spring: Why Our Economies and Politics Are in a Mess - and How to Put Them Right
by Philippe Legrain
Published 22 Apr 2014

Your taxes stretch further because big government contracts have been opened up to competitive tendering, generating better value for money. For some countries, the EU’s single market has been transformational: thanks in large part to foreign investment attracted by its access to the EU market (and its low taxes), Ireland’s Celtic tiger economy leapt from poverty to prosperity within two decades. Freedoms that were unimaginable thirty years ago – that five hundred million people could move freely across the EU, from Lisbon to Lithuania and Leipzig to Liverpool – now seem normal. Asked what the EU means to them personally, Europeans’ top answer is the freedom to travel, study and work anywhere in the Union.735 The EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights enshrines Europeans’ basic freedoms.

Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley
by Antonio Garcia Martinez
Published 27 Jun 2016

As part of my role as shit umbrella/product manager for ads targeting, I had the unwelcome duty to be in on every call and meeting with some guy named Gary, who was evidently the one-man data protection office there. How the land of suffocating Catholicism and potato famines came to be the regulator of the biggest accumulation of personal data since DNA is a curious story. Ireland, following its rise as the “Celtic Tiger” in the mid-aughts and subsequent property crash, actively encouraged American companies to choose Dublin as their European base. Ireland offered tax incentives (the corporate tax rate was very low), an educated (and desperate for work) talent pool, and a rational legal framework. The net result was that the waterfront docks east of Dublin became colonized by US tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Airbnb, each running (mostly) its sales and operations teams out of gleaming new high-rise offices.

The Default Line: The Inside Story of People, Banks and Entire Nations on the Edge
by Faisal Islam
Published 28 Aug 2013

The ‘two Brians’ (finance minister Lenihan and Taioseach Cowen) felt that having funded their sovereign borrowing requirements until mid-2011 there was no need for the dead hand of the inspectors. If a programme was needed, they felt they had maximum bargaining power to limit their loss of sovereignty. That seemed to be mainly defined by keeping Ireland’s 12.5 per cent rate of corporation tax, the lowest in the Eurozone, and a totem of the Celtic Tiger. The policy had attracted tech giants such as Apple, Google and Microsoft, as well as Europe’s bankers. ‘Corporation tax had to be got off the agenda before we’d even start talking,’ said one Dublin official. ‘We made no bones about talking about being fully funded in mid-2011. With a bank run on, it wasn’t really in our interests to prolong it, but we could hold out for longer.’

More: The 10,000-Year Rise of the World Economy
by Philip Coggan
Published 6 Feb 2020

In 2007, the three largest banks in the world were all European.24 When the crisis hit, European central banks and governments rushed to bail out their domestic banking sectors with cheap loans, share purchases, and the like. The effect was to take on to the national balance sheet debts that had previously been borne by the private sector. Between 2007 and 2013, the ratio of government debt to GDP in the euro zone rose from 66% to 93%.25 In some cases, the burden was too great. Ireland was dubbed the “Celtic Tiger” in the 1990s, and enjoyed a property boom, financed by its domestic banks, in the 2000s. When the banks collapsed in 2008 and 2009, the bill was two-fifths of the country’s GDP. A recession then cost Ireland more than 11% of its output. As tax revenues slumped, government debt soared, reaching a peak of 120% of GDP.

The Economists' Hour: How the False Prophets of Free Markets Fractured Our Society
by Binyamin Appelbaum
Published 4 Sep 2019

Richard Green and Jonathan Haskel, “Seeking a Premier-League Economy,” in Seeking a Premier Economy: The Economic Effects of British Economic Reforms, 1980–2000, ed. David Card et al. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 48–49. 91. Sean D. Barrett, “Exporting Deregulation: Alfred Kahn and the Celtic Tiger,” Review of Network Economics 7, no. 4 (2008). 92. The Civil Aeronautics Board, the U.S. regulator, had also proposed the criminalization of discounted airline tickets, in 1971. Congress declined to pursue the idea. 93. Ryan in 1971 hit on the idea of leasing Aer Lingus planes and crew to airlines in other countries during the winter months, when fewer people wanted to visit Ireland.

EuroTragedy: A Drama in Nine Acts
by Ashoka Mody
Published 7 May 2018

Even as domestic demand in Germany remained “dormant,” the growth of exports picked up, and the IMF projected that the German economy, which had contracted in 2003, would grow by 2 percent in 2004.3 In Ireland, the property price boom continued unabated, and while Irish manufacturing jobs did begin moving to lower-​wage Eastern European countries, US multinationals—​with their long-​standing presence in Ireland—​egged on the Celtic tiger. Only Italy seemed stuck in its economic and psychological rut. Suddenly, it seemed as if a new window was opening up for the eurozone to finally demonstrate its potential and deliver on its promises of economic prosperity, stability, and European harmony. In the eurozone’s first five years, poor economic performance and national anxieties had given rise to assertive nationalism.