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A blog from the Northern Ireland Assembly Research and Information Service

Economy and Finance Blog Archive

Here you will find an archive of Economy and Finance Blog articles published before 1 May 2022, divided into their relevant categories.

Economy

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This blog article focuses on key UK Government, Northern Ireland Executive and Departmental initiatives which are currently in place to address the digital divide in Northern Ireland (NI). Following…
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This blog article provides a brief overview of the ‘Digital Divide’. Drawing on the Northern Ireland experience, it explores key characteristics of the Digital Divide, as well as the…
The Nazareth Church on Berlin-Wedding’s Leopold Square with new seating area and ornamental fountains
Data recently released by the footfall-counter Springboard highlights how the number of shoppers in the United Kingdom’s (UK’s) town centres was down by a third (32.7%) when compared to…

Employment and Labour Market

Image showing the word 'wages' spelled out with some cash behind.
Do you know the hourly minimum wage rates for workers in Northern Ireland? Currently, the rates are determined under three separate schemes: the ‘National Living Wage’; the ‘National Minimum…
A bar graph showing the gender pay gap in Northern Ireland since 1998
By Michael Scholes & Aidan Stennett To highlight International Women’s Day, this blog article updates a previous one examining the Gender Pay Gap in Northern Ireland, by presenting the…
Image by perzonseo.com, used under Creative Commons 2.0
By Michael Scholes & Aidan Stennett Please note: we have posted a new version of this blog article using the most recent data, see here. To highlight International Women’s…

Energy

Image of wind farm in front of a setting sun
There was considerable growth in the development of renewable electricity over the previous Northern Ireland Assembly mandate. Changes to renewable electricity support may impact the ability to achieve similar levels…

Enterprise and Investment

This post examines financial support provided by Invest Northern Ireland (Invest NI) to businesses located in Northern Ireland (NI) from 2013-14 to 2017-18, identifying key impacts arising from that…

Finance

An image showing Rishi Sunak, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer
By Nathan Mulholland and Eileen Regan On 23 March 2022, the United Kingdom (UK) Chancellor delivered his 2022 Spring Statement, which this article considers from a Northern Ireland (NI)…
A screenshot from the COVID-19 funding snapshot dashboard
This visualisation provides a series of interactive graphs compiled by the Assembly’s Research and Information Service (RaISe), which offer a snapshot of government funding allocated by the Department for…
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By James Bamford, Karen McCallion & Thomas Procter The Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI) has the role of distributing arts funding for the Department for Communities (DfC) from…

Research and Innovation

Copy of the Northern Ireland Executive’s Economic Strategy and the Programme for Government Consultation Document
By Eóin Murphy, Michael Scholes, and Aidan Stennett The Northern Ireland Executive is currently revising its Economic Strategy.  What are the key factors it should take into consideration when…