13/12/19: World Bank and WEF reports highlight relatively poor competitiveness rankings for Ireland

The latest World Bank "Doing Business" report rankings and the WEF's "Global Competitiveness Report" rankings show Ireland in a mid-tier 1 position (24th ranked in both tables) in terms of competitiveness - hardly an enviable position.

Ireland's position marks a deterioration from 23rd rank in WEF table, driven by relatively poor performance in ICT adoption (hmmm... Silicon Docks economy is ranked 49th in the World), macroeconomic stability (ranked 34th), product markets competitiveness (35th), and financial system (42nd).

Full WEF report here: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_TheGlobalCompetitivenessReport2019.pdf and full WB report here: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/32436/9781464814402.pdf WB country profile for Ireland: https://www.doingbusiness.org/content/dam/doingBusiness/country/i/ireland/IRL.pdf.

A summary chart for Ireland from WB report:

Which, again shows poor performance in the area of credit supply, as well as trading across the border (correlated to the effective market size),  but also in access to electricity, registering property, dealing with construction permits, and enforcing contracts.

15/4/15: Global Information Technology Report 2015: Who's the Best? Not We...

We have Silicon Docks and all the ICT IP stuffed into 'knowledge development boxes' and shipped via this country across the world that one can dream about, we have European HQs of dozens of ICT firms that are here solely for the reason of Ireland having the best workforce and skills in the world, and we have policymakers that cut ribbons on 'future jobs' reports on a monthly basis, promising tens of thousands of ICT sector employees 'in your neighbourhood near you' in the next 5-10-15-20... years… or sometime after the tenure of the Government of the day.

And we rank 25th in the world in the Global Information Technology Report 2015, right between the Digital/ICT Powerhouses of Belgium and France. Yes, that is right - we rank the lowest of all English-speaking advanced economies in the world: big, small, oil and natural resources rich and poor, small and large.

Don't believe me? Well, here: http://reports.weforum.org/global-information-technology-report-2015/network-readiness-index/.


In regulatory frameworks sub-index - the so-called "Environment Sub-index", Ireland ranks 12th. Which is, basically a bunch of political tosh. We rank 14th in "political and regulatory environment pillar (nine variables) [which] assesses the extent to which the national legal framework facilitates ICT penetration and a safe development of business activities, taking into account general features of the regulatory environment (including the protection afforded to property rights, the independence of the judiciary and the efficiency of the law making process) as well as more ICT-specific dimension (the passing of laws relating ICT or the software piracy rates)." Doh!

In laws relating to ICT we rank 23rd. Where it matters more… things are slipping and sliding and slipping again.

In IP protection, we do better - 14th place. Because someone needs to guard the prevailing interest of MNCs more than creating legal system to support general ICT sector.

We do better in Business and Innovation Environment - scoring 13th place, just ahead of Chile and Israel. But when it comes to availability of latest technologies - the cutting edge 'innovation' stuff - we are 22nd. Below Puerto Rico and New Zealand…

Capital of VCs is Dublin. And we have all the cash disbursed by state innovation funds and enterprise funds and entrepreneurship funds… but… we rank 46th in the world in Venture Capital Availability.

Tax rankings? Well, we do well-ish - ranked 26th. You see, many newcomers to the zero sum game of beggar thy neighbour tax competition are ahead of is, but majority of them are developing countries. Majority, but not all.

We rank 27th in the world in terms of time it takes to start a new business and 23rd in terms of number of procedures it takes to start a new business. That is pretty dire for a country aiming to be an entrepreneurship powerhouse. But then again, the report is not even looking at self-employment and sole traders. My guess, in that early stage entrepreneurship area we would be closer to 50th place.

Want a real wallop? Take Government procurement of advanced technologies - a proxy for how advanced is the public sector in ICT adoption and deployment… we rank dis-respectable 62nd. So our mandarins and ministers presiding over the digital strategies and ICT development and policies are working in an environment that is worse than many African countries when it comes to procuring advanced technologies for their own use. Never mind, abacus is fine for computing economic impacts and jobs potential for all those white papers on Innovation Ireland.

Per report, "The readiness subindex measures the degree of preparation of a society to make good use of an affordable ICT infrastructure and digital content, with a total of twelve variables." In readiness we are… 29th in the World (Ukraine is ranked 28th and Poland 30th). Like the 'neighbourhood'?

"The infrastructure and digital content pillar captures the development of ICT infrastructure" which ranks Ireland 26th in the world, below Slovenia and ahead of UAE. How? Well, our mobile networks coverage puts us into 66th place, between Georgia and Tunisia. Our electricity production environment is ranked 35th, our international internet bandwidth is ranked 20th, and in secure internet servers we rank 21st.

Here's a good one: "The affordability pillar assesses the cost of accessing ICT, either via mobile telephony or fixed broadband internet, as well as the level of competition in the internet and telephony sectors that determine this cost." Why is it good? Because we spent many years talking about cost competitiveness. And here Ireland ranks 87th in the world. Mobile tariffs here are so expensive, we rank 125th in this area in terms of affordability. Fixed broadband tariffs? Better - at 59th in the world. Level of competition index for Internet services, international long distance services, and mobile telephone services puts us at the top tier, ranked 1st with a long list of other 61 countries with the same ranking.

Now, wait a second: in a regulated sector with high degree of competition, prices are still dear. How can that be? Why, of course, only if the regulator is fixing them in excess of what the market would set them. Happy times all around, unless you are a consumer. Oh, and do note - our politicians endlessly talk about the need for 'labour cost competitiveness', but where we really lack competitiveness, it turns out is in the old fashioned regulated services that politicians and public sector regulate and/or legislate.

Finally - skills. The report measures these quite esoterically. "The skills pillar (four variables) gauges the ability of a society to make an effective use of ICT thanks to the existence of basic educational skills captured by the quality of the educational system, the level of adult literacy and the rate of secondary education enrolment."

So this is about basic skills, not specific ones. And here we rank well: 8th in the world overall, 5th in how well does the educational system in your country meet the needs of a competitive economy, but only 24th in the quality of math and science education in schools. This, by the way is the stuff of secondary education, not real level of ICT skills present in the economy (those require tertiary as an entry level and fourth and higher levels education for serious engagement). But, when it comes to high school enrolments (secondary education) we are tops of pops, ranked 6th.


So with all these 'skills' achievements, you would expect that we are heavy users of ICT and new technologies - skilled, savvy, early adopters... but, when it comes to actual usage of ICT in real life, Ireland ranks 28th in the world.

Stop and pause, again: for all the achievements of our Docks and Valleys, Centres of Excellence and Start Ups programmes, Innovation Academies and FDI, incubators and accelerators, hubs and labs, summits and venues relating to tech… Ireland's actual usage of real ICT is just a notch worse than Belgium's (ranked 27th) and a notch better than Saudi Arabia's (29th).


You really don't need to go any further than that to either throw the report into a bin or bring the Government policy papers on ICT sector strategies into your local recycling centre. Because either one spoofs or the other. The two are simply not compatible.

Unless, of course, you remember that we are the land of FDI… where everything is possible: technologically weak domestic economy, government and society can coexist with technologically advanced foreign/exporting economy and society; technologically un-enabled ministers and officials can write eloquent papers about technologically enabled economy… Ah, there, all good now... we are the best... there...


Update: h/t to @prfnv for the following link: http://www.shanghairanking.com/SubjectCS2014.html which lists top 200 universities in Computer Sciences... of which none are from Ireland.

4/9/2014: The Bizarre World of World Economic Forum Rankings

Recent, the WEF released its new Global Competitiveness Indicators, showing some pretty bizarre changes in Ireland's performance across a number of metrics.

Here are the historical trends and the latest figures.

Overall, 2014-2015 GCI rank for Ireland shows and improvement from 28th place in 2013-2014 rankings to 25th place in this year's assessment. Expect to see this figure paraded in the official Ireland Inc's power point slides issued by numerous state agencies and departments in months to come. 

The problem is that 25th place is based on a diminished sample of 144 countries and 2013-2014 rank of 28th place is based on a larger sample of 148 economies. If the two samples are reconciled, Ireland's performance did not improve at all. As WEF points out, if the two samples contain economies present in both 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 surveys, Ireland's rank in 2013-2014 survey is 25th, dead on same as in 2014-2015. All the reforms, changes, improvements, turnarounds in competitiveness over the last twelve months amount to standing still in global indicators.

Take a look at the 'Ireland's neighbourhood' in rankings:

Save for Italy (49th rank), Portugal (36th rank) and Spain (35th rank) we are at the bottom of the euro area advanced economies rankings. And we face stiff competition from the likes of the usual suspects and unusual ones, like UAE, Taiwan, Qatar, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia - ahead of us, and China, Thailand, Puerto Rico, Indonesia - within 10 place of us. You might think 10 places is a safe distance, but UAE moved massive 7 places up in rankings within just 1 year. even France, hardly a poster-child for competitiveness (a mistaken, but commonly-held view) is ahead of Ireland.

Never mind competition, here are some of our performance pearls:

Chart above summarises changes in our rankings in 2014-2015 compared to 2007-2008 rankings in categories where we have direct control over our destiny. Take a walk through these with care and consideration.

Take for example Infrastructure. Here we have it: rank of 49th place in 2007-2008 is vastly improved to a rank of 27th place in 2014-2015. Scratch your heads: between 2007-2008 and 2014-2015 our capital investment collapsed, infrastructure investment collapsed, we built virtually no major infrastructure projects… and yet… our performance greatly improved. Applying this logic, tearing down few railway lines in 2015 might get us to rank even better in 2016.

In Health and Primary Education - the area of largest cuts, costs-reallocations and other 'austerity reforms' in recent years, our performance is getting better and better: from 16th place in 2007-2008 to 8th place in 2014-2015. How? I have no clue. Scandals at HSE are running at a steady level of historical highs, funding for new facilities and technologies and treatments is nowhere to be seen, doctors are being replaced at an increasing rate down to emigration, education system had virtually no significant improvements or new funding in ages. Still, rankings improve.

Higher Education and Training: improved from 21st rank in 2007-2008 to 17th in 2014-2015. Meanwhile, our best universities rankings have slipped and our other universities rankings have not shown any visible improvements.

Labour Market Efficiency, however, is basically unchanged on 2007-2008. And that is despite huge efforts expended by the Government to improve our labour markets competitiveness. All the Troika reforms and all the gains in unit labour costs... to stay in the same place...

Innovation factors are also basically flat on the past. Again, despite billions in investment between 2007 and 2014 on innovation and R&D, myriad of funding programmes, agencies reforms, etc, etc.

Chart above shows evolution of our overall rankings in history of the WEF report. Thing to note here is that just as with all other rankings, our performance has deteriorated from the pre-crisis period. But this deterioration is now being erased, rapidly, on foot of the above mentioned (and some other) 'improvements'. 

The trend will continue on into the future: bogus data/analysis will be reinforced by more real gains, such as moderation in our obscene ranking (130th in the world) in terms of Macroeconomic Stability which is bizarrely lagging improvements in our Financial Markets Sophistication.

The latter point above is yet another 'scratch thy head' moment for WEF rankings. Macro stability ranking worst performance was 134th in 2013-2014 and this improved just 4 places to 130th in 2014-2015. In contrast worst Financial Markets performance ranking was 115th in 2011-2012 and this has improved by a massive 54 points to 61st place in 2014-2015 rankings. Now, give it a thought:

1) Irish financial system performance was effectively underwritten by the state debt and ECB. 

2) Irish Exchequer performance improved significantly since 2011, but banking system remains clogged with bad debts and legacy issues. The Exchequer is beating the targets, the banks are still contracting credit and face flat/declining deposits.

3) Economy (macro side) returned to growth some time ago and with some hiccups it is performing vastly better than the banking system.

How on earth can (1) - (3) above add up to a more dramatic gain in Financial Markets assessment against Macroeconomic assessment?

All of the above puts some serious questions up against the WEF rankings. Not just for Ireland, but for the rest of the world too... Then again, it was in January 2007 in a publication accompanying WEF research that Oliver Wyman claimed that the Anglo was the best-performing bank in the world over the previous 5 years. We know the accuracy of that insight.

17/6/2014: Some more troublesome facts about European Competitiveness rankings...

Yesterday, I posted briefly on World Economic Forum Competitiveness Rankings for European Union. That post is available here.

Since then, few people came back to me with a request of running the same analysis across all countries covered in the report. So here it is.

First, WEF Rankings:

Supposedly, higher ranking (lower rank number) means better economic competitiveness. Which should imply two things:
1) Negative correlation between rank and economic growth (higher competitiveness --> higher growth in the economy)
2) Negative correlation between rank improvement (improved rankings) and economic growth (improving competitiveness --> higher growth).

Here is a chart plotting average growth rate in the economies covered by WEF over 2010-2013 (same result, qualitatively, holds for 2012-2013 average, to remove some of the volatility in growth rates) and WEF rankings improvements:

No, statistically-speaking there is no relationship of any meaning between WEF Competitiveness performance over 2012-2014 and growth performance over 2010-2013.

What about rank performance in 2014 and 2012-2013 growth rates?

Nope. No relationship at all.

How about rank performance in 2012 against future 2012-2013 growth?

Totally zero relationship.

So what does this WEF Competitiveness indicator measure exactly? Pet projects of WEF members? Intensity of politically correct policies deployment in the European states? I have no idea, but their competitiveness seems to have preciously nada to do with growth performance...

21/1/2014: Davos: Outdated Irrelevance of Banality?

If you do need to know exactly why the World Economic Forum at Davos is a vacuous undertaking, go no further than this:

The top 5 risks the #WEF survey delivers to us as a break-through insight into the future from all this 'intellectual' elite gathering in Swiss Alps this week are so... how should I put it mildly... banal? well-rehearsed? predictable? all of the above?

If we already know what Davos is just setting 'ahead' for the discussion, what on earth can be the point of following this global navel gazing ego fest?..

More to the point: Water crisis, Climate change, High unemployment, and Fiscal crises all have been at the core of Davos discussions in previous years. Apparently, the Greats of this World still can't resolve any of them. Time to fuel up that Learjet, cause pressing 'risks' are upon us...

21/1/2014: Four Reasons to Worry About Income Inequality

Not being a fan of 'relative poverty' concept for a number of economic reasons, here's my real concern:

Source for both charts: http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bp-working-for-few-political-capture-economic-inequality-200114-summ-en.pdf

The core concerns I have are that

• Extreme disparities of wealth and income distributions can lead to inequality of opportunity and, as the result, to non-meritocratic distribution of wealth and income over generations. 
• Extreme divergence in wealth and income distributions can lead to the decline of democratic participation and thus to a rise in political extremism.
• Extreme differentials in income inequality the wake of a major economic crisis compound long-term effects of the crisis and reduce the rate of recovery, including structural recovery.
• In the current crisis, the core cost of the crisis befell the highly indebted households, primarily from middle and upper-middle classes, plus lower-skilled unemployed. Exit from the crisis, therefore, requires repairing their balancesheets more robustly than the balancesheets of the top 1% earners. The fact that we are witnessing the opposite effect tells me that the underlying causes of the crisis have not been addressed. We have wasted trillions in scarce economic resources and achieved preciously little for it.

8/12/2013: Forbes Claims v Reality

I wrote about Forbes' ludicrous 'rankings' relating to Ireland last week (here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2013/12/5122013-that-forbes-folly-of-global.html). But there is more to it than what I covered in the first post.

Forbes makes an assertion that Irish labour costs have declined over time. Have they? Really?

Here's CSO latest data (through Q2 2013) based on occupation and sector of employment. Not perfect, but tells us two things:

1. Have earnings declined?
2. If yes, have they declined in areas that are of relevance to investors?

Here are some charts:

Key occupational level of skills, traditionally associated with foreign investment in Ireland (we are not a cheap manufacturing location, after all, and make a claim that we compete on high skills) are Managers, Professionals and Associated Professionals. Chart above shows that for all sectors in the economy, average weekly wages in this occupational category rose between Q2 2010 and Q2 2013. The rate of increase ranges from 11.1% for Business & Services, to 10.9% for Industry, to 10.4% for all sectors. Public Sector posted weakest increase of 5.2%.

So, Forbes: no, there was no relevant decrease in wages that investors can be concerned with in deciding that Ireland is Numero Uno...

But, may be investors reading Forbes are into lower skilled occupational categories? Call centres and generic sales? So, take a look at the Clerical, Sales and Service Employees category next:

 
Things are a bit volatile here, but trends are all up, with exception for Public Sector. Industry - up 7.6%, Business & Services up 1.7%, all economy: up 0.4%, as Public Sector is down 9.9%.

So, Forbes: no, there was no relevant decrease in wages that investors can be concerned with in deciding that Ireland is Numero Uno...

However, of course Forbes investors might look toward Ireland as a manual workers paradise? While I have no idea why they would do so, let's just entertain this possibility:

Forbes' investors won't be looking at employing Production, Transport, Craft and Other Manual Workers in Ireland in Industry were they concerned with wages inflation. In this category, Irish weekly wages rose, on average, 1.5% in Q2 2013 compared to Q2 2010. Across Business and Services sector, wages for this category of least-skilled workers fell over the last 36 months, but by only 0.6%. Not exactly spectacular 'gains in competitiveness'. And across all economy - these were down just 0.7%. In Public Sector we registered a significant decrease of 6.6% in this employment category, but it is unlikely to be a point worthy of consideration for Forbes' investors...

So can anyone from Forbes, perhaps, explain, how on earth can these trends suggest massive competitiveness gains?

Lastly, there is the actual claim made by Forbes: "Nominal wages fell 17% between 2008 and 2011, which helped keep labor costs in check." In Q1-Q3 2013, average weekly wage in Ireland stood at EUR687.87 against same for Q1-Q3 2008 of EUR702.34. In other words, average wages have declined (based on Q1-Q3 averages) only 2.06%. In Q3 2013 average weekly earnings were 3.04% lower than in Q3 2008. Where do 17% come from, one wonders?..

5/12/2013: That Forbes Folly of Global Rankings...

So Forbes Magazine ranked Ireland 1st in the world as location for doing business (http://www.forbes.com/best-countries-for-business/list/#page:1_sort:0_direction:asc_search:). This is a bit of confidence builder for us as a nation looking out at the world, and a comical relief for everyone involved across the board.

Forbes does not release actual data, models and/or full methodologies, but their rationale can be glimpsed from here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2013/12/04/ireland-heads-forbes-list-of-the-best-countries-for-business/

Basically, Forbes repackages other sources data and analysis to produce its own rankings.

What do these original (and other, occasionally more reputable) sources tell us about Ireland's position in global league tables?

World Bank Doing Business (2014) report ranks Ireland as follows (http://www.doingbusiness.org/Custom-Query/ireland and http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/~/media/giawb/doing%20business/documents/profiles/country/IRL.pdf?ver=2)

• Overall Rank = 15th, unchanged on 2013 report.
• Starting a Business: 12th in 2014, a deterioration on 2013 rank of 9th.
• Dealing with Construction Permits: 115th, a deterioration on 2013 rank of 108th.
• Getting Electricity: 100th, an improvement on 2013 rank of 101st.
• Registering Property: 57th, a deterioration on 2013 rank of 51st.
• Getting Credit (do not laugh): 13th, a deterioration on 2013 rank of 11th. Note: WB references here strength of legal rights, depth of credit information, public registry coverage and private bureau coverage, so these rankings are not reflective of whether the banks actually provide credit or whether the country has a banking system to speak of.
• Protecting Investors: 6th, same as in 2013. Private pensions are not factored in, so expropriation / bail-in of pensions funds is not reflected.
• Paying Taxes: 6th, unchanged on 2013. Note: these refer solely to corporate and labour taxes by employers, so our income tax 'competitiveness' is not reflected here, nor are rates and indirect taxes are factored in.
• Trading Across Borders: 20th, same as in 2013. These relate to business transactions only, and do not reflect on-line trading & shipping to consumers.
• Enforcing Contracts: ranked 62nd, same as in 2013.
• Resolving Insolvency: ranked 8th in 2014, improvement on rank of 9th in 2013. This references solely business insolvency, neglecting to reflect the connection between personal insolvency (dysfunctional and outdated, even post-reforms) and business insolvency, and failing to reflect archaic professional fitness restrictions in the case of insolvency.

Summary: World Bank DB 2014 is nowhere near identifying Ireland as top country in the world for doing business. By DB rankings we are not in top-10 worldwide.


World Economic Forum (WEF) publishes a series of rankings for countries in terms of various aspects of doing business. Top of the line is The Global Competitiveness Report (GCR) http://www.weforum.org/reports/global-competitiveness-report-2013-2014

WEF's GCR 2013-2014 rankings for Ireland are:

• Overall rank = 28th in 2013-2014, which reflects deterioration in our position from 27th in 2012-2013 report.
• We rank 33rd in Basic Requirements for competitiveness;
• The above include: Institutions (rank 16), Infrastructure (26), Macroeconomic Environment (134) and Health and Primary Education (6)
• We rank 24th in Efficiency Enhancers; 
• The above include: Higher Education & Training (rank 18), Goods Market efficiency (11), Labor Market Efficiency (16), Financial Market Development (85), Technological Readiness (13) and Market Size (57).
• We rank 21st in Innovation and Sophistication Factors
• The above include: Business sophistication (rank 18) and Innovation (20)

Full report is linked here: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GlobalCompetitivenessReport_2013-14.pdf

Snapshot on Ireland from the above: "Ireland is ranked 28th this year with a relatively stable performance. The country continues to benefit from its excellent health and primary education system (6th) and strong higher education and training (18th), along with its well-functioning goods and labor markets, ranked 11th and 16th, respectively. These attributes have fostered a sophisticated and innovative business culture (ranked 18th for business sophistication and 20th for innovation), buttressed by excellent technological adoption in the country (13th). Yet the country’s macroeconomic environment continues to raise significant concern (134th), showing little improvement since last year. Of related and continuing concern is also Ireland’s financial market (85th), although this seems to be tentatively recovering since the trauma faced in recent years, and confidence is slowly being restored."

Summary: by WEF GCR we are not in top-10.


WEF also publishes The Global Enabling Trade Report (latest is for 2012). Here are Ireland's ranks in that assessment (see Table 1 http://www3.weforum.org/docs/GETR/2012/GlobalEnablingTrade_Report.pdf):

• Overall rank of 22 in 2012, down from 21 in 2010.
• Market Access sun-index rank: 67th in 2012;
• Border Administration sub-index rank 10th in 2012;
• Transport and communications infrastructure sub-index rank 29th;
• Business environment sub-index rank 25th

Summary: by WEF GETR we are not in top-10.


WEF publishes The Global Information Technology Report (GITR), here are ranks for 2013 for Ireland:

• Networked Readiness Index rank of 27th, deterioration from 25th place in 2012.
• Environment sub-index rank 15th in 2013, composed of Political and regulatory environment (rank 16th) and Business & Innovation environment (rank 24th).
• Readiness sub-index rank 16th in 2013, composed of Infrastructure and digital content (rank 16th), Affordability (rank 61st) and Skills (rank 12th).
• Usage sub-index rank 28th, composed of Individual Usage (rank 21st), Business Usage (rank 22nd) and Government Usage (rank 43rd).
• Impact sub-index rank 33rd, composed of Economic Impacts (rank 18th) and Social Impacts (rank 56th).

You can see the detailed results here: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GITR_Report_2013.pdf

Summary: by WEF GITR we are not in top-10.


Forbes survey cites WSJ/Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom as another source. This is linked here: http://www.heritage.org/index/country/ireland

WSJ/H 2013 Index of Economic Freedom ranks Ireland as 11th (not in top-10) and the index shows deterioration year/year in all sub-indices save one: Monetary Freedom (something that Ireland has no control over). There is a handy chart on the right on the linked page to show that Irish scores have declined in every year from 2009 through 2013.

But WSJ/H index is not the state-of-the-art index measuring economic freedom.

Instead, much stronger, methodologically and data-wise is the Economic Freedom of the World index published by Fraser Institute. Here's the link: http://www.freetheworld.com/release.html

Per EFN 2013,

• Ireland's overall rank is 15th in the world, which on a comparable basis represents the worst year since 1990. In 2012 report (2010 data) we were ranked 14th.

Summary: no, per Economic Freedom rankings we are not in top-10.


And so on…

I recently wrote in the Sunday Times that Ireland ranks 7th in the OECD in terms of start-ups actually being registered in the country. And that this data might be skewed by the fact that some start-ups registered here during the crisis period are really re-launches of businesses shut down due to pressures of the costs of 'upward-only' rent contracts. Other start-ups are various tax shells created by the MNCs and IFSC etc.

There are many reasons to treat all of the above rankings with a grain of salt. But the key point is: we are a good location for doing business and we are a good destination for FDI. But we are not top 1, nor even top 5. Which means that instead of glowing the bizarre lights of Forbes-like PR, we should be getting down to the painful and dirty business of real reforms.


PS: As Jamie Smyth of FT pointed out, the first time Forbes had Ireland as Number 1 country in its rankings was in 2007 - the same year when Oliver Wyman had Anglo Irish Bank as its World's Best Bank. I must also add, that whilst Forbes today says that Ireland is number 1 country because of lower labor costs and business costs, plus excellent monetary environment, back in 2007 we had sky-high labor costs and business costs, and rotten monetary and fiscal environments. So, apparently, Forbes' 'methodology' delivers identical outcomes on foot of diametrically contradictory data... hmm...