Overview

By 2000, Ireland had achieved a remarkable macroeconomic performance: 10% economic growth annually, a budget surplus, and a very low debt to GDP ratio. Emigration had disappeared and there was significant immigration from Eastern Europe. Yet, by November 2010, output had collapsed to an extent unprecedented among post war industrial countries, the budget deficit was out of control, and the debt to GDP ratio had soared to around 100%. In an unprecedented development, Ireland was forced to apply for an emergency bail-out package from the Troika (European Commission, European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund). This book examines how the Celtic Tiger, a high growth performing economy, fell into a macroeconomic abyss. It is a story that shows how the Irish economy moved from a property market crisis to a banking crisis and fiscal crisis, and how these three crises led to a fourth crisis, the massive financial crisis of 2010. Against the backdrop of the newly created Eurozone, the book demonstrates how a housing boom was transformed into a property market bubble through excessive credit creation. Accompanying the market bubble, buoyant property related taxes enabled a profligate government to over spend and under tax. Few, either in Ireland or Europe, recognised the danger signals because the prevailing economic ideology suggested that financial markets could self-regulate. The book analyses the roles of banks, builders, developers, regulators (the EU, the ECB, the Central Bank of Ireland, and the Irish Financial Regulator), politicians, economists, the media, and a property driven populace during the various stages of the downfall of the Celtic Tiger. It pays particular attention to the decisions to provide a highly controversial comprehensive guarantee for the covered Irish banks in 2008, and the subsequent events that left the government with no alternative but to request the 2010 bail out. Throughout the book, attention is devoted to the allocation of responsibilities for the unfolding crises. First, who or what was responsible for what happened and in what sense? Second, could specific actions have been taken at various stages to prevent the final recourse to the bail out? Finally, the book addresses the future of the Celtic Tiger. It discusses the impact of measures to help resolve the current Euro debt crisis as well as the underlying lessons to be learned from this traumatic period in Ireland's economic and financial history.

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9780199663958

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An excellent guide to the demise of the Celtic Tiger. The Financial Times

This book is the best so far on the Irish financial crisis of 2008 Andrew Moravcsik, Foreign Affairs An important new book ... Donovan and Murphy represent the strength and breadth of contemporary Irish economics ... Drawing on financial history, Donovan and Murphy show that Ireland is hardly the first society to get caught up in the idea that innovation and endlessly inflating asset prices are sure signs of success ... This analysis of what was ultimately responsible for the Irish crisis is of major significance because it urges a different cure from the ones that are usually offered. Felix Martin, New Statesman A fascinating book ... an accessible, balanced and independent analysis. Sunday Business Post Required reading. Irish Independent An excellent guide to the demise of the Celtic Tiger. The Financial Times

Author Information

Donal Donovan is a Member of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, Adjunct Professor at the University of Limerick, and Visiting Lecturer at Trinity College Dublin. He is a former deputy director at the International Monetary Fund with considerable experience in the area of financial crises. He has advised in the preparation of two major reports on the Irish financial crisis. He is a member of the newly appointed Fiscal Advisory Council of Ireland. Antoin E. Murphy is Professor Emeritus of Trinity College Dublin. He is the author of three books published by Oxford University Press. He is an expert in the area of the history of economic thought and has a deep historical knowledge on asset market bubbles and financial crises.

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