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Patrick Honohan @phonohan.bsky.social · Aug 27

Nice review from @omfif.bsky.social of my @piie.com book on crisis management. www.omfif.org/2025/08/cent...

Central banking manual for fighting crises: the need for split personalities - OMFIF

Patrick Honohan, governor of the Central Bank of Ireland from 2009 to 2015 – the seminal period of euro area sovereign debt upsets – is a central banker who almost literally grew up with economic and ...

www.omfif.org

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Patrick Honohan @phonohan.bsky.social · Aug 9

Mackerel sky, Dublin tonight.

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Patrick Honohan @phonohan.bsky.social · Jul 7

How much capital do central banks really have? My new
@piie.com paper provides the calculation for twenty countries. There are some surprises.

Peterson Institute for International Economics @piie.com · Jul 7

Central banks are incurring losses, @phonohan.bsky.social writes, because of impact of rising interest rates on their maturity mismatched portfolios & losses on foreign exchange reserves accumulated attempting to avoid currency overvaluation. But comparing experiences is not straightforward.

How much capital do central banks really have?

Twenty or more of the world’s most significant central banks have seen their equity position (or capital and reserves) go negative in the last few years. This novel situation does not fundamentally ch...

www.piie.com

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Patrick Honohan @phonohan.bsky.social · Jul 1

On the other hand, mysterious non-standard notional assets appear in the accounts of others, obscuring their true negative marked-to-market condition. My @PIIE blog post highlights this for four leading central banks. (A working paper covering another twenty is coming soon).

Patrick Honohan @phonohan.bsky.social · Jul 1

Some European central banks report negative net worth even though their gold holdings, when valued at market price, make their marked-to-market capital quite high.

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Patrick Honohan @phonohan.bsky.social · Jul 1

Central bank accounting is not standardised, making their financial condition hard to compare. www.piie.com/blogs/realti...

How much money have central banks really lost?

Central banks experienced widespread financial losses over the last three years. The problem has been most severe at banks whose balance sheets were bloated in the years of low interest rates and quan...

www.piie.com

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Patrick Honohan @phonohan.bsky.social · Apr 17

Thanks so much to Philip Lane, Agustin Benetrix @tcdeconomics.bsky.social, Alan Barrett @esri.ie ie and all the distinguished participants for my birthday conference @ria.ie and this absorbing special issue of my favourite journal.

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Patrick Honohan @phonohan.bsky.social · Apr 17

Studying the macroeconomic policy questions of Ireland over the past fifty years (with many colleagues) has been fascinating. The black hole of MNC profit repatriation, stabilizing the fiscal accounts, migration and unemployment, wealth inequality and financial crisis: there’s no better laboratory.

The Economic and Social Review @econsocrev.bsky.social · Apr 17

The Spring edition of the ESR is now available. This issue is based upon a special conference in honour of @phonohan.bsky.social. It features 3 papers relating to fiscal, growth and financial sector policy as well as articles in response from a panel of experts and...
www.esr.ie/index.php/es...

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Patrick Honohan @phonohan.bsky.social · Apr 3

Essentially all of this deficit comes from pharmaceuticals. An additional sectoral tariff on pharmaceuticals is the shoe that has not yet dropped. It will.

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Patrick Honohan @phonohan.bsky.social · Apr 3

The 42% comes from dividing the US merchandise trade deficit with Ireland (US$86.7 billion according the US data), by Ireland's exports to the US ($103.3 billion). Half of this is 42%.

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Patrick Honohan @phonohan.bsky.social · Apr 3

Given the (strange) way yesterday's new US tariffs were calculated, Ireland escapes a much higher tariff (42%) by being included in the EU (20%).

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Patrick Honohan @phonohan.bsky.social · Mar 17

Interesting combination and seasonal timing for this podcast from @bruegel.bsky.social

Bruegel @bruegel.org · Mar 17

Happy #StPatricksDay! ☘️

Today, we dive into Ireland’s journey from crisis to confidence.
@rebeccawire.bsky.social speaks with Eamon Gilmore, former Foreign Minister, and @phonohan.bsky.social on Ireland’s recovery, housing crisis, and global role.
#EconSky

Ireland’s journey from crisis to confidence

A conversation on Ireland’s economic recovery, housing crisis, and international role

buff.ly

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Patrick Honohan @phonohan.bsky.social · Feb 13

You rarely see any 1c (or 2c) coins in Ireland since we introduced a rounding system in October 2015.
It works like this:
Rounding is voluntary and applies only to cash payments;
Your bill is rounded up or down to the nearest 5c;
1c and 2c coins are still legal tender.
Everyone is happy.

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Reposted by Patrick Honohan

Peterson Institute for International Economics @piie.com · Feb 10

Ireland collects much of the corporate tax revenue a more coherent US tax code would channel back across the Atlantic. Ireland could also be in the firing line as a major & growing contributor to the US trade deficit—now 4th in the world. By @phonohan.bsky.social: www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025...

Patrick Honohan: Ireland is more exposed to Trump’s tariff war than any other European country

Without turning away from the United States, it is vital for Ireland to remain unambiguously and progressively engaged in collective action in support of Europe

www.irishtimes.com

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Patrick Honohan @phonohan.bsky.social · Jan 21

Through Waterford-born Nobel prize-winning Physicist Ernest Walton (1903-95), Ireland has a better claim than the United States to having been the first (along with New Zealander Ernest Rutherford and Englishman John Cockroft), to have "split the atom". www.atomicarchive.com/history/manh...

The Atomic Solar System

The Manhattan Project: Making the Atomic Bomb.

www.atomicarchive.com

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Patrick Honohan @phonohan.bsky.social · Jan 21

Disappointing indeed. International regulatory collaboration is needed to help prevent climate damage from the financial sector.

Uuree Batsaikhan @uureeb.bsky.social · Jan 20

While California burns & Florida drowns @federalreserve.bsky.social is exiting NGFS. While it did not have much enthusiasm to start with, it is a sign that US is not willing to work with rest of the world on climate ⛔️ grim start to 4-year misery to begin today
www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/p...

Federal Reserve Board announces it has withdrawn from the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System (NGFS)

The Federal Reserve Board on Friday announced it has withdrawn from the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System (NGFS). Whi

www.federalreserve.gov

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Patrick Honohan @phonohan.bsky.social · Dec 20

Here is ECB Chief Economist Philip Lane recommending my new @piie.com book The Central Bank as Crisis Manager in today’s ECB Podcast (Minute 15:30). soundcloud.com/europeancent...

Tariffs, tensions and tackling inflation: the road ahead

What impact do global events have on our economy? And how has the ECB’s monetary policy shifted? As 2024 comes to an end, our host Paul Gordon discusses these questions and more with Chief Economist

soundcloud.com

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Patrick Honohan @phonohan.bsky.social · Dec 19

Good idea. I’ll do the same. 50 years for me since I finished the same LSE MSc, in the days of Gorman, Sargan, Durbin, Morishima and some youngsters who are now giants (Sen, Dasgupta, Hendry…)

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Patrick Honohan @phonohan.bsky.social · Dec 10

Online at 6 pm Wednesday (Dublin time)

Peterson Institute for International Economics @piie.com · Dec 9

DECEMBER 11: The launch of @phonohan.bsky.social's new book "The Central Bank as Crisis Manager," drawing lessons from recent crises across four continents & calling on central banks to prepare for crisis management. #EconSky
Info & register: www.piie.com/events/2024/...

PIIE book launch
December 11, 1:00 - 2:00 PM ET
Register at piie.com/events
Book launch: The Central Bank as Crisis Manager
By Patrick Honohan
Senior Fellow, PIIE

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Patrick Honohan @phonohan.bsky.social · Nov 29

And the patterns are fairly persistent:

Patrick Honohan @phonohan.bsky.social · Nov 29

(The other outliers are AC=Accommodation and food services, TR=Transportation; ED=Education. Full names in the cso.ie website from which the chart has been calculated.)

Home - CSO - Central Statistics Office

cso.ie

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Patrick Honohan @phonohan.bsky.social · Nov 29

And one sector provides an interesting exception to the lackluster 2019-2024 sectoral real earnings growth in Ireland. It's the Information and Communication sector (shown below as IT), already with relatively high weekly earnings and still racing ahead as it has for many years.

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Patrick Honohan @phonohan.bsky.social · Nov 29

If it's economics that drives voting in general elections, the question for Ireland today is whether it's microeconomics or macro. (See the NYT piece by @fotoole). These graphs quantify the contrast between rocketing aggregate employment growth and below peak average real earnings.

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Patrick Honohan @phonohan.bsky.social · Nov 27

I think it’s spelled “Winsorizing”. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winsori...

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Patrick Honohan @phonohan.bsky.social · Nov 27

I like to think that these restrictions will represent only the first phase of the euro CBDC’s operation. When it’s up and running successfully, they can be removed.