Payroll taxes, capital grants and Irish unemployment

This paper explores the role of factor prices in macroeconomic models which embody the frequently-encountered Classical, Keynesian, and Structuralist perspectives on the caused of Irish unemployment. It is argued that within each framework a strong case can be made for at least partial repleacement of the current IDA capital-grants scheme by a policy of payroll-tax reductions for newly-created jobs. Various objections to this type of proposal have been raised in the literature, and these are dealt with here on a point-by-point basis. A range of estimates is given for the likely employment effects and exchequer costs of the proposed policy.

A hard copy is available in UCD Library at GEN 330.08 IR/UNI