The biggest trouble with this working paper is that it’s a classic case of nuanced academia meets tabloid headlines.

Again… What short term…
My partner works… And makes just to much many to avail of family income supplement school allowances etc…. I need 33k to break even on childcare commute clothing cost when going to work.

We are taxed up to the hilt….

One of us at home… The other making a bit less would give us a higher expendable income and more time with our kids.

Thing is psychological we need work. So now for 100 a month extra we hardly see our kids

This report played right into the Krugman’s fallacy. People who work pay taxes, buy stuff (like child care) and generally support the employment of others. If more people go on the dole that has a strong negative feedback effect on the economy and their neighbors. Which is why, of course, austerity fails in a depression and stimulus works.

Clearly there is nothing wrong with the paper which can be read on the Irish Times, instead what we have is political interference, the powers that be in the ESRI blocking Tol’s research and that suggests the ESRI are not an independent institution. Actually what conclusions can be drawn from this research is how hard it is for low earners to survive in this country, with 7000 to 9000 costs just clocked up yearly form actually going to work. It also makes a laugh of the governments jobsbridge scheme, which is actually costing those with least income in our society to take up these shtty dead-end “internships” because the government has done nothing about job creation.

There is an important point here about the ubiquity of ecomonic commentators in Ireland at the current time. People seem to forget (and some economists don’t seem to realise) that life and society is much more complex than that which can be measured in pure economic terms. This is the same logic that looks at the value of culture only in terms of what it can pull in in hard tourist dollars.

I felt some sympathy (but not too much!) for Moore McDowell on a recent Frontline debate when he was asked to comment on the economics of Arts funding in Ireland. His opinion was undermined before he opened his mouth by PK’s reference to Oscar Wilde’s aphorism about knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing and Michael Colgan was able to seize on this in his criticism of the narrow focus of economics.

The ESRI, as its name suggests, has a remit beyond pure economics but it appears that this working paper leaned too heavily on that particular field of analysis.

Does anyone know the purpose of the ERSI?

And assuming it delivers on that purpose is it more important to our society than many of the services that have been slashed?

Just askin’

Nat,
Just to clear something up – the word ‘unprecedented’ was used by the ESRI themselves in their statement last night, which is why we in The Irish Times used it. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0612/breaking49.html
In the light of this, perhaps you might want to rephrase your introductory comments?
Regards,
Kilian

where is my comment

you are now censoring comments

Well, back for a second small bite, after reading the paper, these and other posts and comments, it is clear that the paper is assigning costs for short term unemployment in a booming economy, while the inference, which the authors have not denied is for long term unemployment, e.g. people who stop working in order to take advantage of the short term differential.

According to Tol himself the “takeaway” food figure is overall spend on convenience food, NOT just lunch money. I suspect the clothing figure of 25 a week is also overall spend and not just for work. Correcting that would make a big difference to the results.

Well Christine another comment has not gone up.???.