IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/feddwp/05-10.html

Ireland's great depression

Author

Listed:
  • Alan G. Ahearne
  • Finn E. Kydland
  • Mark A. Wynne

Abstract

We argue that Ireland experienced a great depression in the 1980s comparable in severity to the better known and more studied depression episodes of the interwar period. Using the business cycle accounting framework of Chari, Kehoe and McGrattan (2005), we examine the factors that lead to the depression and the subsequent recovery in the 1990s. We calculate efficiency, labor, investment and government wedges, and evaluate the contribution of each to the downturn and subsequent recovery. We find that the efficiency wedge on its own can account for a significant portion of the downturn, but predicts a stronger recovery in output. The labor wedge also helps account for what happened during the depression episode. We also find that the investment wedge played no role in the depression.

Suggested Citation

  • Alan G. Ahearne & Finn E. Kydland & Mark A. Wynne, 2005. "Ireland's great depression," Working Papers 0510, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:feddwp:05-10
    Note: Published as: Ahearne, Alan, Finn Kydland and Mark A. Wynne (2006), "Ireland's Great Depression," The Economic and Social Review 37 (2): 215-243.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.dallasfed.org/~/media/documents/research/papers/2005/wp0510.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Assorted Links
      by Martin Ryan in Geary Behaviour Centre on 2010-04-14 16:32:00

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Leal, Matheus Cardoso & Nakane, Márcio Issao, 2025. "Brazilian economy in the 2000’s: A tale of two recessions," Latin American Journal of Central Banking (previously Monetaria), Elsevier, vol. 6(1).
    2. Jinghai Zheng, 2008. "On Chinese productivity studies," Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(2), pages 109-119.
    3. Pedro Brinca & João Ricardo Costa Filho & Francesca Loria, 2024. "Business cycle accounting: What have we learned so far?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 1276-1316, September.
    4. Renzo Orsi & Francesco Turino, 2014. "The last fifteen years of stagnation in Italy: a business cycle accounting perspective," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 469-494, September.
    5. Petre Caraiani, 2016. "Business Cycle Accounting for Peripheral European Economies," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 63(5), pages 468-496, November.
    6. Mugrabi, Farah & Rünstler, Gerhard, 2025. "Housing and Credit Cycles in Ireland," Research Technical Papers 16/RT/25, Central Bank of Ireland.
    7. Klein, Paul & Ventura, Gustavo, 2021. "Taxation, expenditures and the Irish miracle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 1062-1077.
    8. Emmanuel Ameyaw, 2023. "The relevance of domestic and foreign factors in driving Ghana’s business cycle," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 3(9), pages 1-33, September.
    9. Erasmus Kersting, 2008. "The 1980s Recession in the UK: A Business Cycle Accounting Perspective," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(1), pages 179-191, January.
    10. Roman Sustek, 2011. "Monetary Business Cycle Accounting," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(4), pages 592-612, October.
    11. Keiichiro Kobayashi & Masaru Inaba, 2006. "Borrowing constraints and protracted recessions," Discussion papers 06011, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    12. Simona Cociuba & Alexander Ueberfeldt, 2008. "Driving Forces of the Canadian Economy: An Accounting Exercise," Staff Working Papers 08-14, Bank of Canada.
    13. Zheng, Jinghai & Bigsten, Arne & Hu, Angang, 2009. "Can China's Growth be Sustained? A Productivity Perspective," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 874-888, April.
    14. Brian Lucey & Charles Larkin, 2012. "Risk Tolerance and Demographic Characteristics: Preliminary Irish Evidence," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp406, IIIS.
    15. Hansen, G.D. & Ohanian, L.E., 2016. "Neoclassical Models in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2043-2130, Elsevier.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:feddwp:05-10. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Amy Chapman (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbdaus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.