Ronan Lyons
@ronanlyons.bsky.social
Housing, cities, history. Professor in Economics at Trinity College Dublin, Data Lead at CEPH. Dad of 3, husband of 1, soccer coach, rugby fan. ronanlyons.com and ronanlyons.substack.com.
Ireland has overtaken another EU member state, in population, for the first time since joining the EEC back in 1972. At current trends, Ireland will overtake Finland in 2028. (And Scotland maybe in 2027, just about.)
August 26, 2025 at 12:49 PM
Ireland has overtaken another EU member state, in population, for the first time since joining the EEC back in 1972. At current trends, Ireland will overtake Finland in 2028. (And Scotland maybe in 2027, just about.)
Great opportunity to resurface this after nearly two years
July 14, 2025 at 6:50 PM
Great opportunity to resurface this after nearly two years
Looks like I picked the right afternoon to free up my schedule
May 9, 2025 at 2:40 PM
Looks like I picked the right afternoon to free up my schedule
As part of the piece, I look at Ireland's share of Europe's population since 1500, using overlapping Maddison and UN data. If even 1700 - not to mention 1750, 1800 or 1840 - represented 'steady state' for the island, it is still significantly under-populated, notwithstanding the last three decades.
May 8, 2025 at 10:52 AM
As part of the piece, I look at Ireland's share of Europe's population since 1500, using overlapping Maddison and UN data. If even 1700 - not to mention 1750, 1800 or 1840 - represented 'steady state' for the island, it is still significantly under-populated, notwithstanding the last three decades.
Delighted to have been elected to Fellow of @tcddublin.bsky.social, together with my wonderful colleague @davideromelli.bsky.social. And what a day for it!
April 28, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Delighted to have been elected to Fellow of @tcddublin.bsky.social, together with my wonderful colleague @davideromelli.bsky.social. And what a day for it!
Looks like I picked the right week to start reading Galbraith...
April 9, 2025 at 9:35 AM
Looks like I picked the right week to start reading Galbraith...
Not as pretty as John's graph (that's always a high bar) but here you can see the Irish equivalent Uncertainty Index, up to March. I've no doubt the April figure will match global trends. This comes from the excellent work of Jonathan Rice.
www.policyuncertainty.com/ireland_rice...
www.policyuncertainty.com/ireland_rice...
April 4, 2025 at 3:37 PM
Not as pretty as John's graph (that's always a high bar) but here you can see the Irish equivalent Uncertainty Index, up to March. I've no doubt the April figure will match global trends. This comes from the excellent work of Jonathan Rice.
www.policyuncertainty.com/ireland_rice...
www.policyuncertainty.com/ireland_rice...
The internet at its best. Four great penguin memes (that none of us would have got, even 24 hours ago)
April 3, 2025 at 5:05 PM
The internet at its best. Four great penguin memes (that none of us would have got, even 24 hours ago)
Our first paper using that dataset looks at what we know now about US housing markets over the long-run that we didn't before: they went up by more than previously thought, in ways linked to the supply of homes and of credit.
April 1, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Our first paper using that dataset looks at what we know now about US housing markets over the long-run that we didn't before: they went up by more than previously thought, in ways linked to the supply of homes and of credit.
Agreed. I wrote a piece not that long ago calculating the ratio of arrivals to hotel beds for Dublin over the last two decades - in short, the city needs an extra 10,000 hotel beds (+50%) and yet bizarrely keeps refusing new proposals while also bemoaning Airbnb.
thecurrency.news/articles/142...
thecurrency.news/articles/142...
March 30, 2025 at 5:41 PM
Agreed. I wrote a piece not that long ago calculating the ratio of arrivals to hotel beds for Dublin over the last two decades - in short, the city needs an extra 10,000 hotel beds (+50%) and yet bizarrely keeps refusing new proposals while also bemoaning Airbnb.
thecurrency.news/articles/142...
thecurrency.news/articles/142...
A fascinating list of newspapers in Ireland (and how often they were published), from 1850. The number of newspapers in the country was as high as 25 in 1800, hit 66 by 1830 and was almost 100 by the middle of the century. #irishhistory
March 27, 2025 at 4:11 PM
A fascinating list of newspapers in Ireland (and how often they were published), from 1850. The number of newspapers in the country was as high as 25 in 1800, hit 66 by 1830 and was almost 100 by the middle of the century. #irishhistory
No doubt you saw Brett's chart but I found it a handy way of gathering thoughts (and, I hasten to add, I don't like excessive focus on RWCs, I just picked two years hence as it's far enough away and close enough!) - one or two positions in particular look thin but better than I might have thought.
March 13, 2025 at 10:09 AM
No doubt you saw Brett's chart but I found it a handy way of gathering thoughts (and, I hasten to add, I don't like excessive focus on RWCs, I just picked two years hence as it's far enough away and close enough!) - one or two positions in particular look thin but better than I might have thought.
Unfortunately, your facts don't fit the narrative.
February 28, 2025 at 1:23 PM
Unfortunately, your facts don't fit the narrative.
Nobody does better Valentine's Day cards than six year olds to their best friends.
February 14, 2025 at 10:31 AM
Nobody does better Valentine's Day cards than six year olds to their best friends.
Presented, without comment, a clip from Farmer's Gazette and Journal of Practical Horticulture - this month 165 years ago.
February 6, 2025 at 11:24 AM
Presented, without comment, a clip from Farmer's Gazette and Journal of Practical Horticulture - this month 165 years ago.
2/ But Trinity had - and still has - an arrangement with both Oxford and Cambridge known as "ad eundem" (or incorporation), where each recognises the others' degrees. The Provost at the time saw no reason to exclude women from the process - accidentally creating the phenomenon of 'Steamboat Ladies'!
January 31, 2025 at 10:43 AM
2/ But Trinity had - and still has - an arrangement with both Oxford and Cambridge known as "ad eundem" (or incorporation), where each recognises the others' degrees. The Provost at the time saw no reason to exclude women from the process - accidentally creating the phenomenon of 'Steamboat Ladies'!
How did @tcddublin.bsky.social end up owning Trinity Hall? A somewhat random story for a Friday. Back in the early 1900s, Oxford and @tcddublin.bsky.social were the last two universities in the then UK to refuse to admit women. In 1904, Trinity relented, admitting women for the first time. 🧵
January 31, 2025 at 10:43 AM
How did @tcddublin.bsky.social end up owning Trinity Hall? A somewhat random story for a Friday. Back in the early 1900s, Oxford and @tcddublin.bsky.social were the last two universities in the then UK to refuse to admit women. In 1904, Trinity relented, admitting women for the first time. 🧵
Looking forward to a piece on the economics of The History of the History of Economics Society next!
January 21, 2025 at 11:56 AM
Looking forward to a piece on the economics of The History of the History of Economics Society next!
Just a little shout-out to my grandmother, pictured here on her honeymoon in England, who died 60 years ago today. Her young-ish death meant that I never met her. I remember her seeming a very distant figure when I was little... but now 15 years does not seem long at all!
January 10, 2025 at 12:07 PM
Just a little shout-out to my grandmother, pictured here on her honeymoon in England, who died 60 years ago today. Her young-ish death meant that I never met her. I remember her seeming a very distant figure when I was little... but now 15 years does not seem long at all!
8/ To do this, we combined state-of-the-art methods, detailed data from historical newspapers and a unique setting to get at causal effects. We digitized over 16,000 rental listings from NYC newspapers 1918-1930 and mapped them. And the results of the analysis were crystal clear!
December 17, 2024 at 10:50 AM
8/ To do this, we combined state-of-the-art methods, detailed data from historical newspapers and a unique setting to get at causal effects. We digitized over 16,000 rental listings from NYC newspapers 1918-1930 and mapped them. And the results of the analysis were crystal clear!
7/ We use the fact that these court districts had sharp boundaries, unrelated to other features of economic geography, to test whether crossing from a "pro-tenant" Democrat district into a "pro-landlord" Republican one had any impact on rents paid.
December 17, 2024 at 10:50 AM
7/ We use the fact that these court districts had sharp boundaries, unrelated to other features of economic geography, to test whether crossing from a "pro-tenant" Democrat district into a "pro-landlord" Republican one had any impact on rents paid.
6/ But the system of rent controls brought in by NYC was not the technocratic system New Yorkers will be familiar with today. Instead, it gave judges the power to decide which rent increases were reasonable. Not only that, judges were elected, creating a strong incentive for ideological judges.
December 17, 2024 at 10:50 AM
6/ But the system of rent controls brought in by NYC was not the technocratic system New Yorkers will be familiar with today. Instead, it gave judges the power to decide which rent increases were reasonable. Not only that, judges were elected, creating a strong incentive for ideological judges.
5/ New York, which had what one commentator called a 'housing famine' as WW1 ended, was the first major city in the US to introduce rent controls. The move, in April 1920, was in response to a horrendous spike in market rents, shown in the graph below: rents in 1920 were 150% higher than in 1915.
December 17, 2024 at 10:50 AM
5/ New York, which had what one commentator called a 'housing famine' as WW1 ended, was the first major city in the US to introduce rent controls. The move, in April 1920, was in response to a horrendous spike in market rents, shown in the graph below: rents in 1920 were 150% higher than in 1915.