Productivity trends in Ireland - a reply

Abstract

Sapsford and Kelly deal with that portion of my work which updated Kennedy's (1971) earlier study. Within this they focused on manufacturing productivity trends, in the post-war period, and not on productivity growth in relation to output which was my own concern (Katsiaouni 1979; Table 3.2, p. 18). To this end, the points raised were on the method used for estimating productivity trends and on the division o f sub-periods. Given that I wished to obtain comparable results to earlier research in Ireland, on the same topic, it was natural to adopt the same procedures as previous researchers. The same "trend through end points " method of estimating the series was maintained consistently in m y report and whenever comparisons were necessary. The overall periods considered were 1953-73 and 1953-74 within which the following sub-periods were selected: 1953-64, 1964-73, 1959-72 and 1966-74. Hence, several sub-periods were examined and their detailed results presented in Appendix B o f the report. For a few of the sub-periods the reasons for their choice was made explicit while for other the considerations remained implicit. This, on reflection, may have been imprudent but in research, at least, one must sometime accept that what is out of sight is not out of mind.