Catching up with the rest: the Irish experience

Abstract

“atching up” in the EC context means the living standards of poorer countries approaching those of richer ones, i.e. real convergence, as distinct from nominal convergence in inflation, interest rates and budget balances. The most commonly-used measure of living standards in such comparisons is average GDP per capita. In some circumstances, however, this indicator may be seriously misleading.KeywordsMember StateSocial CohesionReal Interest RateCommon Agricultural PolicySingle MarketThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.