Quarterly Economic Commentary, Autumn 2013

Duffy, David and FitzGerald, John and Timoney, Kevin and Byrne, David (2013) Quarterly Economic Commentary, Autumn 2013. [Working Paper]

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Abstract

Understanding the pattern of growth in the Irish economy is very difficult this year. Many of the key indicators that one would normally rely on are affected by special factors. In particular, the data for industrial output, exports and, hence, GDP, are driven by an exceptional fall in the profitability of the pharmaceutical sector, a fall which has little if any direct impact on Irish economic welfare in the short run. For this reason, in explaining the current trends in the Irish economy we concentrate on GNP as a measure of economic welfare, a measure which is largely unaffected this year by these special factors.

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