Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Kevin Hjortshøj O'Rourke
Author-Workplace-Name: All Souls College, Oxford
Author-Email: kevin.orourke@all-souls.ox.ac.uk
Title: Independent Ireland In Comparative Perspective
Abstract: This paper surveys independent Ireland’s economic policies and performance. It has
three main messages. First, the economic history of post-independence Ireland was not
particularly unusual. Very often, things that were happening in Ireland were happening
elsewhere as well. Second, for a long time we were hampered by an excessive dependence
on a poorly performing UK economy. And third, EC membership in 1973, and the Single
Market programme of the late 1980s and early 1990s, were absolutely crucial for us. Irish
independence and EU membership have complemented each other, rather than being in
conflict: each was required to give full effect to the other. Irish independence would not
have worked as well for us as it did without the EU; and the EU would not have worked as
well for us as it did without political independence.
X-Classification-JEL:
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Length: 35 pages
Creation-Date: 2017-02-02
Number: _150
File-URL: http://www.economics.ox.ac.uk/materials/papers/14939/150-final.pdff
File-Format: application/pdf
Handle: RePEc:nuf:esohwp:_150