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This paper examines the feasibility of various alternative student loan schemes for Ireland. Using data from a large employer survey, we model the life-cycle earnings distribution for Irish graduates. We then use these estimates to simulate the effects of alternative types of student loans, including mortgage-type loans and income-contingent loans of various designs, incorporating participation and migration patterns into the simulations. The results show that mortgage-type loans entail unsustainably high repayment rates for low income graduates. Through the specification of several alternative income-contingent loan schemes, it is demonstrated that this approach to higher education financing is feasible both in terms of affordability for graduates and with respect to implied government subsidies. There are some important policy design issues to be addressed and we conclude with some recommendations for a future Irish scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper looks at the economic returns to different fields of study in Ireland in 2004 and also the value placed on various job-related competencies, accumulated on completion of higher education, in the Irish labour market. In examining these issues, the paper also analyses, through quantile regression, how the returns vary across the earnings distribution. The impact that education-job mismatch, both education level and field, has on earnings is also taken into consideration. The results derived indicate that, relative to the base case, there are higher returns to Medicine & Veterinary, Education, Engineering & Architecture, Science and Computers & IT. Small but significant returns were found for some of the competencies analysed, in particular technical skills. The quantile regression analysis reveals that both field and competency returns vary across the wage distribution and that, apart from Medicine & Veterinary and technical skills, field and competency-specific returns diminish as one moves up the earnings distribution. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In the last decade Irish innovation policy has been focused on Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). This paper explores the effects of HEIs, in the context of interaction with other interaction agents, on the innovation output of Irish high-technology businesses. Based on a survey of 184 businesses in the Chemical and Pharmaceutical, Information and Communications Technology and Engineering and Electronic Devices sectors, the paper estimates the importance of in-house R&D activity and external interaction with HEIs, support agencies and other businesses for product and process innovation. A key finding is that the greater the frequency of direct interaction with HEIs the lower the probability of both product and process innovation in these businesses. There is some evidence of a positive indirect HEI effect, through complementarities of interactions with suppliers and support agencies. However, while external interaction is important for innovation output, there is little evidence that geographical proximity matters. These findings have important implications for Irish innovation policy. Last year's Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation: 2006 to 2013 committed an additional €1.88 billion for research and commercialisation programmes in HEIs. The econometric results presented suggest that this substantial public investment in HEIs may have a disappointing, and perhaps even a negative, effect on the innovation output of Irish business, thus undermining future Irish prosperity. In addition, the absence of evidence supporting the existence of Irish clusters and networks for innovation suggests that policymakers long-standing support for these have been misguided. The paper concludes by advocating that innovation is a business rather than a technological phenomenon and argues for a changed role for HEIs to one of responding to innovative businesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has indicated significant variation between schools in the proportion of their students who go on to higher education. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the specific school characteristics influencing application and entry to tertiary education. This paper sets out to analyse the individual and school factors which influence the transition to higher education in the Irish context. The paper draws on a large-scale study of 4,400 students within 108 secondary schools in the Republic of Ireland. Almost three-quarters of the students in the sample applied for a higher education course. However, schools varied in the application rates of their students. These differences are found to be related to the background characteristics of students (in terms of gender, social class and prior ability) along with the institutional habitus of the school. It is found that school factors associated with increased college application rates do not necessarily appear to yield higher rates of college entry but rather that successful entry to tertiary education is related to general academic effectiveness in the school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ireland's dramatic economic boom of the 1990s has been referred to as 'the era of the Celtic Tiger'. In a little over a decade, real national income per head jumped from 65% of the Western European average to above parity, unemployment tumbled from double to less than half the European Union average and numbers at work increased by over 50%. Much research has been carried out on the impact of each of the separate elements agreed to have been important in stimulating or sustaining the boom. The present paper focuses on one key under-researched synergy - the nexus between the country's industrial strategy, which focused on attracting foreign direct investment in certain high-tech sectors, and the orientation of the third-level educational system that had been developed in Ireland over recent decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]