Irish Economics Blogs

Over the last couple of years, a number of blogs related to the Irish Economy have started to emerge. Below are the ones that stand out for me. This is clearly a partial list and of course things like politic.ie and boards.ie pre-date economics blogs and have provided a forum for economic debate for a long-time now. What is unusual about the current wave is that Economists are directly providing the content and taking an active part in the debate, opening up an aspect of the Irish public sphere that didn't exist before. Clearly, some people have not welcomed this development, including some billionaires who think Economists should either stick to teaching or start businesses to learn the workings of the real world. I think it is worth thinking and discussing about where this trend will go. We may be at the limit of the current stream in that most people who are potentially interested are now involved and the formats have settled down. One potential development is the growth of these blogs into forums where more substantial content is added. The IrishEconomy blog has added an "irish economy notes" section and we are attempting here (not with much effort for now) to integrate seminar and event videos into the blog. I would hope that we rapidly get to a stage where meaningful online seminars can be conducted through this medium. The technology itself is obviously trivial but it needs people to be interested enough to set it up and enough people to follow to generate a stream of good comments. Stephen Kinsella has spoken about online book-clubs. If anyone watching in wants to use this blog as a guinea pig, then feel free to propose something.

IrishEconomy is now the main blog that deals with Irish Economics issues. It was founded by Philip Lane and currently features two to four posts per day on Irish economics issues.

Turbulence Ahead is run by Gerard O'Neill, Director of Amarach Research. Gerard's blog is consistently high quality, generally taking the form of daily short essays on current issues.

Stephen Kinsella's website serves as a portal for his students but is also regularly updated with essays, rants and resources relevant to economics more generally. Has generated a lot of spin-offs including his recent book on Ireland in 2050. Stephen's model has always interested me as a means of involving the outside world in an academic lecture series. Stephen has also been the most adventurous in using every web technology known to man to disseminate material. As such, it is fair to say that he is an educational pioneer, at least in these parts, and it would be good to see more people following this model.

Ronan Lyons is another prolific blogger, with his blog recently winning a national media award. Ronan's posts tend to be well-crafted usually involving data analysis. He has done a particularly good job this year in starting high profile debates on pay and on property prices.

True Economics is Constantin Gurdgiev's blog. It is opinionated and far more data-driven than the average blog and has been particularly strong on things like NAMA. Good coverage of releases relevant to the Irish Economy.

ALSO (suggestions please)

progressive economics : a blog from the TASC network, generally advocating left-leaning policies. Regularly updated and with good multi-media content.