Luke McGrath

University of Galway | NUI Galway

Ireland’s first national well-being framework was announced in late 2021. This study offers a systematic review concerning two key missing links whose omission weakens the framework’s coherence. The first is the lack of clarity surrounding the concept of sustainable development leading to potential confusion between the trade-offs surrounding well-...

This guest lecture delivered to ATU Galway economics students focuses on key regional trends across economic metrics and examines the keys to future regional economic development.

Ireland’s first national well-being framework was announced in late 2021. This study offers a systematic review concerning two key missing links whose omission weakens the framework’s coherence. The first is the lack of clarity surrounding the concept of sustainable development leading to potential confusion between the trade-offs surrounding well-...

Ireland’s first national well-being framework was announced in late 2021. This study offers a systematic review concerning two key missing links whose omission weakens the framework’s coherence. The first is the lack of clarity surrounding the concept of sustainable development leading to potential confusion between the trade-offs surrounding well-...

In June 2022, the CSO published preliminary results of the Census across a limited set of areas based on initial counts from more than 5,000 enumeration areas. The preliminary results will be subject to revision when the full results are published next year. It is nevertheless important to examine the preliminary results as they can be used to prov...

Ireland’s first national well-being framework was announced in late 2021. This study offers a systematic review concerning two key missing links whose omission weakens the framework’s coherence. The first is the lack of clarity surrounding the concept of sustainable development leading to potential confusion between the trade-offs surrounding well-...

After a century of Irish independence, this study constructs long run Genuine Savings estimates, a leading economic indicator of sustainable development, to reassess Irish economic history from the vantage of sustainable development. The main difference uncovered surrounds the post-1950 period where Ireland failed to achieve economic convergence an...

This paper constructs measures of Genuine Savings (GS), the leading economic indicator of sustainable development, for 28 European economies from 1990 to 2016. The World Bank publishes GS estimates for most countries in the world. The World Bank’s estimates are extended to include local air pollutants (sulfur dioxide, non-metallic volatile organic...

One year on from the first national “lockdown” in Ireland, this report attempts to add to our understanding of the regional economic impact of COVID-19.This report details how the regional dynamics of the COVID-19 shock are influenced by pre-pandemic economic structures. Given these structures it should be unsurprising that the Western Region and A...

Natural capital accounting allows for the integration of our natural assets within economic and political decision making, can improve natural resource governance and permits the development of environmentally adjusted macroeconomic indicators to serve as complements to Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The United Nations System of Environmental-Econom...

Economists offer what is arguably the most internally consistent framework for sustainable development assessment, the so-called “capital approach”. To operationalise the capital approach, measures of the changes in comprehensive national wealth (Genuine Savings) are required. In this paper, we present estimates of Ireland’s Genuine Savings using t...

The World Bank computes estimates of Genuine Savings (GS), a leading indicator of sustainable development, for most countries. A well-established literature has called for methodological enhancement. This paper presents augmented estimates of Irish GS throughout a period of unprecedented economic expansion and decline (1990–2016). A time-series con...

The World Bank computes estimates of Genuine Savings (GS), a leading indicator of sustainable development, for most countries. A well-established literature has called for methodological enhancement. This paper presents augmented estimates of Irish GS throughout a period of unprecedented economic expansion and decline (1990 - 2016). A time-series c...