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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

Infographic illustrating Northern Ireland's export trade in goods
Please note: we have posted a new version of this blog article using the most recent HMRC annual trade data, see here. This blog post uses annual data from…
Cover pages of the 2012 Economic Strategy and 2017 draft Industrial Strategy
Following on from a recent blog post on ‘a revised strategy for Northern Ireland’s Economy’, this post looks at the Department for the Economy’s draft Industrial Strategy and highlights…
World Trade Organization public forum in 2016
During a House of Commons debate on Article 50 in February 2017, Brexit Minister, David Jones, confirmed that if the UK failed to secure a deal with the EU…

Employment and Labour Market

Infographic illustrating the scale of the gender pay gap in Northern Ireland
By Aidan Stennett & Eóin Murphy Please note: we have posted a new version of this blog article using the most recent data, see here. This article examines the gender…
A student reading in a library (Image: Tulane University, under Creative Commons)
Education and training are key factors in economic progress, acting as a means of raising productivity. Whilst other factors can result in short-run economic improvements, education and training are…
A pay slip with pound coins
The introduction of the National Living Wage (NLW) could have a number of impacts in Northern Ireland (NI), raising the earnings of those aged over 25, but potentially creating…

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

Figure 1: Resources allocated at Monitoring Rounds 2011-12 to 2015-16
Later this month, the new Minister of Finance will announce the outcome of the Executive’s June Monitoring Round. But what is a Monitoring Round, and what opportunities does it…
What is ‘outcomes-based budgeting’, and what are the key benefits and limitations of using it?…
The figure shows that DAERA, the Department of the Economy, the Department of Finance and the Executive Office all received cuts for 2017-17 from their baseline. The Departments of Communities, Health, and Justice all received increase from their baselines.
How were resources allocated to the nine Executive departments, and how much did they get? On 13th January 2016 the Minister of Finance and Personnel published the Executive’s single…

Research and Innovation

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…
An image of a microscope
  This week sees people across Northern Ireland getting interested and involved in science through the Northern Ireland Science Festival. We thought we would join the celebration of all…
Cover pages of the 2012 Economic Strategy and 2017 draft Industrial Strategy
Following on from a recent blog post on ‘a revised strategy for Northern Ireland’s Economy’, this post looks at the Department for the Economy’s draft Industrial Strategy and highlights…