Two pieces on Ireland via Marginal Revolution.
First up, the headliner, January 22:
Ireland was not a story of overbuilding caused by laissez-faire policy, or an experience that defied standard economics. Ireland built very few ghost towns – housing excesses, where they occurred, were a product of government tax policy, rather than irrational markets. And supply and demand perform very well in explaining the trends.
And:
How on earth, you might ask, has Ireland ended up with almost all parts of its policy system trying to get lots more housing built – but the key cogwheel doing its utmost to hold new housing back? The answer, ironically, is Ireland’s own policymakers falling for the myths of the last bubble. It seems that the key personnel of the OPR believe the north-west of the country built too many homes in the 2000s because of state inattention and a wayward market, rather than as the result of extraordinary state effort to bring about that outcome....
....MUCH MORE
And from the Irish Independent:
Dead man ‘propped up by two other men in attempt to collect pension at post office’
