Title: Third-level education, foreign direct investment and economic boom in Ireland

Authors: Frank Barry

Addresses: School of Economics, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: celtic tiger; foreign direct investment; FDI; Ireland; science and technology; manpower policy; industrial strategy; high-tech sectors; high technology; tertiary education; higher education; university education; economic growth; economic development; technology management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTM.2007.012710

International Journal of Technology Management, 2007 Vol.38 No.3, pp.198 - 219

Published online: 10 Mar 2007 *

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