1/7/2013: Summary of education systems stats for Ireland, 2013

Interesting numbers on education system in Ireland, compared to OECD and EU21: http://ec.europa.eu/ireland/press_office/news_of_the_day/pdf_files/2013/ireland_eag2013-country-note.pdf

Summary tables are very informative.

The full OECD publication is available here: http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/education-at-a-glance_19991487

Here's an interesting chart from the publication (click to enlarge):

Basic point - once we exclude international students, Ireland is basically indistinguishable from the OECD average on terms of tertiary education attainment.

Furthermore, with international students counted in, 1.9% is the Irish graduation rate for Advanced Research Degrees (PhDs) which ranks us 12th in the OECD. Removing international students, the rate is 1.6% or 9th.

Another note: Ireland does not report on the proportion of students who enter the third level education and graduate, so we cannot tell how bad is the propensity of Irish system to graduate students once they are into the system. Ireland also does not report completion rates in third and higher levels of education.

In 2011, Ireland had the fifth highest unemployment rate for those with at least tertiary education completion, the third highest rate for those with Upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary education and the sixth highest for those below upper secondary education in the OECD.

Employment rate in Ireland for those with Type A and advanced research programmes tertiary education completion stood at 83%, which ranked as 22nd in the OECD. Put differently, that 'best educated' workforce in Ireland was, apparently, one of the least employed.

A caveat to all reading both documents: there are no corrections in the data for foreign workers employed in the country of residence. Which, of course, means that high salaries in ICT services and International Finance, earned by foreign employees working in Ireland are potentially skewing the data on returns to education

20/6/2013: Some facts about income inequality in Ireland and across OECD

Here's an interesting chart from the OECD's latest analysis of income inequality changes during the crisis:

Chart: Market income inequality rose considerably (Percentage point changes in the Gini coefficient of household market and disposable incomes between 2007 and 2010)

While Ireland ranks 1st in terms of overall gross income inequality increases during the crisis (primarily driven by the changes in the employment composition by tenure during the recession and the asymmetric recovery/price dynamics in assets markets between property and equities), we rank 9th in terms of after-tax disposable income inequality. Put differently, tax hikes did impact disproportionately those better off, so much so, they offset asymmetric income changes (including for income from assets).

This effect is partially reflected in the chart below:

Chart: Taxes and social transfers mitigated falls in market income in most OECD countries (Annual percentage changes in household disposable income between 2007 and 2010, by income component)

As things stood in 2010 (major caveats apply here), Ireland's levels of income inequality are actually below the OECD average:

Chart: There are large differences in levels of income inequality across OECD countries (Gini coefficient of household disposable income and gap between richest and poorest 10%, 2010)

Although our income inequality is above that for all EU countries, save Italy, Estonia, Greece, Spain, UK, and Portugal. In comparative across the English-speaking OECD states, we are ranked in the 1st place in terms of having the lowest levels of income inequality.

Loads of fascinating analysis on the topic here: www.oecd.org/els/soc/OECD2013-Inequality-and-Poverty-8p.pdf

18/2/2013: OECD on Corpo Tax Havens for G20

Just as G20 was starting to make noises about corporate tax havens at their meeting in Moscow (here) the OECD produced a convenient paper on the topic of tax avoidance. The paper is rather 'neutered' when it comes to language, but nonetheless offers couple fascinating insights, especially when it comes to Ireland. The report is titled "Addressing Base Erosion and Profit Shifting"

Per OECD: looking "specifically at the effects of income-shifting practices of United States based MNEs [Clausing, 2011],  …finds large discrepancies between the physical operations of affiliates abroad and the locations in which they report their profits for tax purposes: the top ten locations for affiliate employment (in order: the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, China, Germany, France, Brazil, India, Japan, Australia) barely match with the top ten locations for gross profits reporting (in order: the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Ireland, Canada, Bermuda, Switzerland, Singapore, Germany, Norway and Australia)."

And then:

"A report of the United States Congressional Research Service (Gravelle, 2010) concludes that there is ample and clear evidence that profits appear in countries inconsistent with an economic motivation. The report analysed the profits of United States controlled foreign corporations as a percentage of the GDP of the countries in which they are located. It finds that for the G-7 countries the ratio ranges from 0.2% to 2.6% (in the case of Canada). The ratio is equal to 4.6% for the Netherlands, 7.6% for Ireland, 9.8% for Cyprus, 18.2% for Luxembourg. Finally, the study notes that the ratio increases dramatically for no-tax jurisdictions with for example, 35.3% for Jersey, 43.3% for Bahamas, 61.1% for Liberia, 354.6% for British Virgin Islands, 546.7% for the Cayman Islands and 645.7% for Bermuda."

Now, of course, Ireland is a conduit via which profits of MNCs are off shored to zero tax jurisdictions, so one wonders, how much of Cayman's and BVI or Bahamas' 'profits' are really coming via Ireland.

The whole report addresses the issue of 'base erosion' in tax systems - the topic also close to heart to Ireland, as CCCTB proposals at the EU level are attempting to deal exactly with that problem and represent a massive threat to Ireland's tax optimisation industry.

Based on the data in the report, here are some revealing charts:

It is first worth noting that in absolute terms, corporate tax revenues overall are not that spectacular in the case of Ireland, contributing at an OECD average levels to the Exchequer. And these revenues have been falling, not rising, in importance despite a severe decline in GDP during the crisis:

Three interesting aspects per above are:

1. It is pretty clear that Irish Exchequer has opted to transfer lower corporate tax burden onto the shoulders of individual Irish taxpayers, and that this process has started well before the onset of the crisis, but became dramatically pronounced in 2007-2009.
2. It is also pretty clear that overall corporation tax is not an important source of Exchequer funding in recent years despite the Government numerous claims that the Corporation Tax receipts are robust and vital to the Exchequer.
3. Domestic boom period was associated with a massive (relative) uplift in tax revenues from the corporation tax, while the MNCs/exports boom during the crisis did nothing of the sorts, showing clearly that the effect of MNCs activities on Irish economy (as instrumented by the Exchequer) is weak.

However, the trend toward deterioration in revenues importance to the Exchequer during the crisis (driving down the 2000-2011 average) stands in contrast with rising importance of the corporation tax in the decade of the 1990s:

It is illustrative to highlight the change in relative importance of the corporation tax revenues over the last decade:

Ireland stands out as the the country with the third largest decline in corporation tax importance in 2011 compared to 2000-2005 average. In contrast, in Switzerland, the corporation tax contribution in 2011 stood at a premium on 2000-2005 average.

Here are some links on the topic of the Irish corporate tax haven from the blog:

http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2012/11/19112012-links-on-irish-corporate-tax.html

http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2012/10/13102012-irish-corporate-tax-haven-in.html

http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2012/10/30102012-feeble-defense-for-tax.html

http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2012/11/19112012-two-points-on-irish-corporate.html

http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2012/10/13102012-irish-corporate-tax-haven-in.html

Enjoy.