DEW Economics Conference

The conference today was a great experience intellectually if not emotionally. John McHale argued for the idea of notional defined contribution pensions and provided a thought-provoking discussion of the nature of the Irish pension system and the challenges facing it. Colm Harmon gave a wide-ranging talk outlining the economic policy issues surrounding irish education from pre-school right up to postdoctoral labour markets. I will post Colm's note later in the week and I urge people to study it carefully and debate its contents. Philip Lane put forward his strategy for macroeconomic recovery. Details of that are available here . David Blanchflower assessed Irish unemployment experience in the context of OECD unemployment. Blanchflower's talk highlighted the potential welfare costs associated with a large cohort of young people remaining in unemployment and he argued for a wide range of interventions to stem this. Both John Fitzgerald and Colm McCarthy offered thoughtful contributions as chairs of the sessions. The wide-ranging panel discussion that took place at the end was a particular highlight for me with nearly an hour of questions and discussions. I hope this debate will continue and lead somewhere. I have certainly continuously learned from and been challenged by the ongoing discussion being carried in these conferences and on irisheconomy.ie. I think it is important now that a realisation of the extent of this collapse has formed that we continue to discuss the five year and ten year term as we consider policies. Today was a good start to this.