The current national accounts framework, was drawn up after the World War II, when economies were dominated by physical output, and it was relatively easy to determine what was produced within a particular country. The digital world has transformed both production and consumption.
The lines between manufacturing and services are blurred. Apple no longer manufactures Apple products. It and many other companies earn their profits from the services they supply with their phones and other products. As Ireland knows very well, it’s unclear where digital services are produced, and the spread of remote working makes calculations this even more difficult.
Measuring productivity growth is increasingly problematic in this digital age. Coyle, Professor of Economics at Cambridge also highlights the ‘shifting boundaries between the market and the household’, as many jobs previously carried out within a company are out-sourced to consumers – such as reading gas meters and bank transactions.
She refers to this as a ‘time tax’ on consumers; the benefits accrue to the firms. She suggests that how time, (a finite resource) is used, should be calculated as a measure of well-being.
This book brims with ideas. At times readers may find it challenging – but it raises fundamental questions, because our sense of well-being impacts on politics and society. There is a major fixation with Artificial Intelligence; Coyle’s book suggests that this is only part of a wider story.
For and Against a United Ireland, by Dubliner Fintan O’Toole, and Belfast-based Sam McBride, (Royal Irish Academy/University of Notre Dame, 2025), addresses an issue that pops up frequently in contemporary politics, but I suspect that most people try to avoid seriously considering the question.
This short book, which draws on the research carried out by ARINS (a partnership between the RIA, Notre Dame and the Irish Times), consists of four essays. McBride and O’Toole each write a chapter setting out the argument for a united Ireland, and one setting out the case against this, with lots of interesting information about contemporary Ireland, north and south.
They do not indicate their personal preferences. This model of balanced and generally dispassionate analysis of a contemporary topic could and should be applied to other issues.
Josef Stalin is reputed to have asked, ‘how many divisions has the Pope?’
Yvonnick Dendel, Vatican Spies from the second world war to Pope Francis, (Hurst and Company, London 2024) reveals for the first time, the major role that the Vatican played throughout the Cold War, using its networks of priests as sources of information.
In the 1950s, working with the Americans they parachuted incognito priests (generally Jesuits), into eastern Europe, and then and in later years they carried out other clandestine operations, including smuggling books to dissidents.
The importance of what they describe as ‘the microscopic Vatican’ is indicated by the fact that in 1978 both US and Soviet listening devices were discovered in the offices of the Secretary of State. This is a history, based on detailed research, but the shady characters and sometimes improbable stories read more like a spy novel.