 And this evening, what I am hoping to do is to let you all know exactly what an economist does, where they can work, but in particular, what I want to do is I'm going to document for you how an economist would work with every single chapter that we have in the book. That's the way I'm going to run this evening. And of course, if you have any questions at all, please do pop them into the chat. If you're watching this as recording, of course you can always send me a DM on Instagram. You can also send us in an email and there's lots of other ways to find me, but they typically tend to be the two most popular at the moment. If I was here with you last year, which of course I was in many cases, then I would have said you could send me a message on Twitter or of course the different social media have changed over the years and that actually really ties in with what I'm going to be talking about this evening. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to start off here by talking you through the different employers than an economist might have. And then next I'm going to move in to looking at the different chapters and how each one fits. I am a punctual person, so I will make sure that we are finished and done and ready to go within the hour, okay? So I will mention that again, those of you who are listening to the recording, you're the time and the hour of that is not going to matter. So I'm just going to say that this is all going to be wrapped up within 60 minutes. Okay, so first of all, an economist, what do they do? Well, an economist is somebody that looks at the economy from both either a macro or a micro point of view. And from there, an economist is then tasked with helping other people to make decisions or else make decisions in their own right to have really, really, really go into low cost. So my story is that I started off I never studied leaving start to economics at all. I do want to make that point. But then I went to college and I went to study financial maths and economics in Galway. And that was my path into the economics route. And then from there, I decided to specialise in the area of financial economics because then I went on to study my CFA exams, the Chartered Financial Analyst exams. And then from there, I also went on to become an entrepreneur and then the rest of my story is history that is evolving into my future. So that's my story. But who could be my employer? And whether that might be in a place that I report full-time or alternatively, if I was, which I am, an entrepreneur and then I was selling economics as a service to somebody else, who might my customer be? Okay, so I'm going to give you a rapid fire round of 10 potential customers. Number one, government agency. A government agency could of course be an organisation that could employ me or could require my services. Perhaps they are deciding about the impact of certain decisions in a budget. Perhaps they are trying to look into trends of things that are happening around inflation or employment. Perhaps they are looking for policy suggestions or decisions or analysis on things that they might want to implement in order to affect change. A second example would be a banker or financial institution. For example, the central bank is an organisation that is tasked with gathering huge amounts of data to understand how our economy works and how our economy affects different aspects of our society. So as a result, an economist may well work in a bank as well. Consulting firm. So if a, let's say that a consulting firm has a client and that client is a really big company. And it's a really big company and it wants to make decisions about how it should invest its capital budget for the next five to 10 years. So should it be investing in AI, artificial intelligence? Should it be investing in making its processes more efficient? Should it be investing in thinking and considering about the trends that they're seeing in consumer behaviour? Like more people want to eat healthy or more people are looking to exercise from home or more people are now working in a hybrid scenario as a result of the consequences of the pandemic. So let's say a really big company goes to a consulting firm and says we want to analyse trends and we want to do that in order to make decisions about where we're going to spend our capital budget in the future. Again, the consulting firm may need to consult with an economist along the way. International organisation. So you think about any organisation that is involved in helping nations do business with each other, okay? So think of Enterprise Ireland is an organisation in Ireland where they're tasked with helping entrepreneurs like my business to be able to do more business abroad or to be able to recruit staff that we need into the future or to be able to set up links with international organisations abroad to make it easier for businesses here to be able to do business in other parts of the world. Again, an international organisation needs to be able to look around the world and see what's inflation like in another part of the world but our interest rates like in another part of the world but our expectations around currencies in another part of the world. And then we have research institutes and think tanks. So research institutes, they would simply look into research and then get an understanding of either how things happen or where things are going in future. So for example, there might be a research organisation now that is looking at the impact of offshore wind energy or a lot of research organisations are looking into climate change, the impact of climate change on the economy. Another set of organisations might be looking at how do we deal with growing inequality or how do we look at the sustainable development goals and how do we make them much more acceptable and tangible for small businesses in parts of the world. And then we have universities and academic institutions. Like I mentioned, I went to college to study about financial maths and economics. Well, of course, we need lecturers in order to do that. So I was lectured by a range of people who worked in the economics department and some of them would have their own specialism within it or some of them might have studied the CFA exams like I went on to do. Some of them might be people who would go on to study PhDs and supervise other academics who are upcoming. Some of them would collaborate with universities and professors and academics around the world to produce research. Some of them might be writing journal articles and some of them might be speaking at events around the world where they would be influencing think tanks and consulting firms, et cetera. And then of course, we have our not-for-profit organisations as well. So what does a not-for-profit organisation do? Well, it does a job that is not profitable. So one might say when it comes to public goods, for example, like roads or like a military organisation, is that no single person is going to pay for a public road. Because of course, if it is a public road, then everybody can use it. So why would one person pay for it? And when it comes to areas that not-for-profits work on, it comes down to things like what is it that people need but there isn't a private incentive or a profitable incentive in order to do. So you think about anything to do with charity, you think about international development, you think about again, closing that gap of inequality, when you think about things that take an awful lot of money in order to solve a problem like food security in a very poor part of the world where they can't afford to maybe invest in technology that can deliver more productive practices, et cetera. Well, then you need not-for-profit organisations in order to be able to fill that gap. And of course, they need economists as well because economists are really good at spotting the trends of where there are gaps along the way. They can also understand how to make a business case. Like if you were to apply for funding, for example, an economist is really going to point out how that funding can be allocated, where the resources can go so they can have maximum impact and also to be able to measure the impact that is made. Then of course, large companies and small companies too, but primarily large companies also need economists because large companies need to understand where should we be investing our resources today in order to make the biggest difference for tomorrow. So again, that could be coming back to analysing trends. What is going on in the world now with inflation or changing practices around smartphone use or where are people migrating to now? Where is at biggest risk from the point of view of climate change as people are creating more and more smart manufacturing, where are future jobs going to be, where jobs going to be lost, et cetera. And all of these things have a big impact on the world of course, in general, but big companies serve an awful lot of customers. And if they serve an awful lot of customers, they need to know what customers want, what's important to them and how to be able to invest their resources to get ahead of the back. And then of course, we have the healthcare industry. The healthcare industry is a really interesting one from the point of view of understanding how the healthcare industry works is that primarily a healthcare industry is often funded by government. And it's funded by government because there's lots of people who are not well who need government intervention in order to take care of them. Also, there's a lot of people who may not be able to afford certain medicines or vaccines, et cetera. And there is also a government incentive for the lifelong measurement of its citizens to be able to invest in healthcare broadly speaking in a country. And then that might not just mean dealing with illness and disease but also preventing illness and disease through maybe better nutrition, incentivizing exercise, et cetera. So you are likely to have an economist in the center of that where they're going to be looking at, again, trends. What are people spending? What are people buying? What are people putting their time and energy and focus on? And how do we understand that? And then in a Venn diagram, they're also looking at the technology. So what new technology is out there for the treatment of cancer or diabetes? On the other hand, what other trends are happening, let's say, in wellness in the workplace? So are companies now in providing more incentives to individuals, for example, to better work-life balance, to exercise more? Are they providing them with subsidized access to healthcare providers? And then where are people at when it comes to affordability of private healthcare? So can people afford private healthcare? Is there a competition in the market when it comes to healthcare, et cetera? And when you put all of this together, the economists maybe working with the healthcare providers, maybe working with the government, maybe working with a company who is setting up a business in order to serve different people's needs along the way. So the healthcare industry definitely has a need for economists as well. And the last one I'm going to say are technology companies. Technology is, in my opinion, it is that unsustainability is one of the biggest megatrends of this decade. Like when we look at, I think, when we look back on this decade, we will say the two things that had the most change were spoken about the most that influenced most of our lives in the most tangible ways were IT, so technology as well as sustainability. But when it comes to tech, if I just specify there, if I was to, instead of saying again about all the different jobs that economists could have in a technology company, let me just turn it around this time and I'm just gonna give you a niche example of how an economist is needed to intersect with technology. AI, okay, we all know that AI is now something that is now readily accessible to every single person in the world who's got a smartphone and a connection to Wi-Fi. AI is now really accessible. And as a result of that, we now know that there are work tasks that no longer need a human to do, okay? We now know that. And therefore, if we think about that, an economist would be needed in a technology company to understand, right? First of all, what is the power of AI and what jobs may AI do that is better than a human? But then on the other hand, if you display certain jobs, and I don't mean roles, I don't mean like a job that a person does, I'm talking about a job task that somebody does. So if we can take those job tasks off a person's disk, or off a person's operating table, or out of a hospital, or out of a cockpit, if we were to take those away, well, then what could that be replaced by? So what more productive things could those individuals who are doing those jobs do? And then we have the Nafman effects of those, which is, okay, but if they can be more productive together, then we may have some people who have far less to do. And what new things do we need to train those people to do so that we can be far more productive overall? And you may say, right, well, then perhaps we can move those people into learning how to quote, or learning how to analyze data, or having more time for those people to spend time with their staff to develop them and inspire them and lead them, or maybe they need to retrain in some other form of innovation, or maybe we need to let those people go, and therefore they have a new opportunity to retrain, but we need to make sure that the government is meeting those people as they are being made redundant to be able to offer them social welfare and new learning and development opportunities. That's the type of thing that an economist would do, is look at what is the effect, and then the Nakhkan effect, and then the Nakhkan effect, and then the Nakhkan effect, and particularly from four key stakeholders, the individual, the business, the government, and the not-for-profit sector. They are the four key stakeholders that are in any of our world. They are the four, anywhere we go, whether it's healthcare, or whether it's any sector, whether it's our school, whether it's our home, whether it's our business, generally speaking, you have those four stakeholders are present there in every single way. So they are the 10 typical type of employers that an economist can have. And I wanted to start there because I have worked with practically all of them, right? I pretty much, with all of them, I have certainly been working with the government in different ways around helping people to understand the impact of certain decisions. I have certainly been working with lots of not-for-profits where within our own business, and there's a range of different things that our business does, is where we can help them to understand the trends that young people might be concerned about when it comes to what am I gonna do if I don't like my job? Or what are the trends that young people are seeing around AI and the job tasks that I was saying? Or what are the trends with CAO points? Like when it comes to supply and demand with CAO points, we can see what jobs, sorry, what courses are more in demand than others and how then of course they push up the points. And then what is enough kind of effect for those? Whether it comes from university places or when it comes to career guidance or whether it comes from then the demand for friendships or PLCs, et cetera. So as an economist, every single one of those organizations, whether it's an international organization, whether it is a government organization, not for profit, a technology company in healthcare, I have interfaced with all of them at some stage along the way. So they're the typical type of employers that an economist can have. Now, next thing is I have given myself the task of when I have the book positively you can have it here beside me. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give a scenario out of each chapter where an economist would need to think about this particular case in the day-to-day job that they would do. Okay, so every single chapter relating chapters here from economics as a way of thinking all the way to international trade. So let me give you a scenario in each case. Okay, chapter, okay, let me start from start. In the case of chapter one, which is called economics as a way of thinking, there is a lot of economic history that is factored into that chapter and the way in which economists think. So if an economist needed to look at economic history, why would they need to do that number one? And secondly, how can they project that into the future? Well, an economist is often needed to look into the past so that we can learn the lessons of what happened from the Great Depression, from the recession in 2008. Let's say that happened in Ireland, but also that happened around the world when we looked at periods of really high inflation and how we handle those. But also an economist is needed to understand are things different this time? So when we had a really big recession in Ireland in 2008 and nine and 10, et cetera, what was different then about what could be different now? So for example, what was our borrowing like at the time? How many houses did we have at the time? How many mortgages did we have at the time? What was our employment like at the time? What sort of foreign direct investment did we have in Ireland at the time? So from the point of view of economics as a way of thinking, this is a way that we need economists to look back so that then we can look forward. In the case of chapter two, economics concepts of scarcity and choice, how many economists think here? Well, let's say that a big company was to go to a consulting firm and they say to them, we have got 10 million in our budget and we have three opportunities to take. We can expand into the Middle East. We can expand our technology to be much better in terms of AI or else we can make a new product and bring it to market. However, each of these three choices each cost 7 million each. What should we do that would make this choice optimal? And this is where you could then reach out to an economist and say, OK, we have three opportunities. We need to think about the cost involved in each of them. We need to think about the potential payoff involved in each of them. We need to think about the risks involved in each of them. We need to think about the consumer trends in each of them. We need to think about the knock on fixed of each of them. And we need to think about the long-term impact of each of these choices then we can put all of that together and make the best decision. That is how an economist can look at economic concepts of scarcity and choice. In chapter three, we talk about economic social and environmental sustainability. Now, this is a really fast-going area of the economy, but in so many different ways. So why do you need an economist here? Well, an economist this time could be working with an international organization to say, okay, as we look around the world and we look at the impact of climate change and we look at mobility of migration and also we look at technology and we look at trends of how countries are doing business with each other and we also look at the potential impact of war. Let's take all of this together and let's think about now as an international organization, how can we do something that will really make a difference? For example, what could that international organization do in order to reduce climate change? And this is what the Paris Accord was all about in 2015. Or what can we do as an international organization to promote more equality in the workplace right across the world? Because if there's more equality in the workplace right across the world, well, then we know that we can then make sure that more people have more money more respectively equally, then with more money they can build their education, which we know has a massive impact on one's ability to earn more money in the future. So if everybody can earn more money in a more equal way, then they can invest more in their own education and then potentially grow the possibilities for themselves and for future generations as well. When it comes to chapter four, which is the market economy, this is one of the areas which is so hugely and highly influential in so many aspects of our lives. But this one I'm going to boil it right down to when it comes to our education system. An economist might well be sitting in the heart of the CAO, the Central Applications Office, and lots of people in Ireland apply through the CAO in order to find a college place in the future. And the reason for that is that an economist would sit at the CAO to see, look at all of the demand for courses that we are seeing here. So lots and lots of people are applying for all these different courses. And at the moment, healthcare courses are really popular, IT courses are really popular and teaching courses are really popular. So as a result of all this demand, well then we also need to look at the other side and say, well, how well equipped are our universities to take on those places? Do they have the supply that can reach the demand or that can meet the demand? Also, is that supply up to date with what industry needs in the future? So if there's a lot of college place available, is there going to be enough jobs out there afterwards for people to take on those, to take on those college graduates? And if the answer is there's an imbalance, right? If there's an imbalance, if there's an awful lot more demand than the supply available, well then of course, CAO points are going to be there. And therefore the CAO needs to reflect that as they then go on to make offers out to students in all every corner of the country thereafter. And of course the opposite can happen. Perhaps some courses go down in demand and perhaps there is too much supply available in some places. So what do you do then? Well, you can drop the points or else do you have a conversation with the universities and say, well, do you need to reallocate people? No longer is this course now in demand, instead you need to talk to industry and see what new opportunities are out there and to rebalance demand and supply accordingly. And then similarly, you can also look at demand and say, is there the right opportunities or are there the right opportunities for people today? Maybe instead they should be looking at apprenticeships and that's why there is a lot more resources going into apprenticeships now. Should there be PLC courses? How should PLC courses interact with college courses or with industry to make sure that people have a place in the education system that they might want? So while a lot of the time we talk about demand and supply in terms of price, remember price can be in many different currencies and the budget that a student might have when they apply for a CAO place, of course, it's not money, what instead it could be number of points that they have arising from their grades. Chapter five is all about elasticity and why would an economist be employed or their service procured in order to facilitate somebody who needs to apply elasticity? Let's say the government is thinking about how do we make a difference in people's lives to make them healthier? Well, one of the things that we could do is that we could put up the price of cigarettes. Okay, if we put up the price of cigarettes though, as they typically do in a budget, if we put up the price of cigarettes though, there are some people who are addicted to cigarettes. So if we put up the price of cigarettes to 100 euros per packet of 20, well then what impact could that mean in that household? Are there some people out there who would spend 100 euro on a packet of cigarettes and then other people in their household could go hungry? And that's what elasticity looks at is how elastic is someone's demand whereby they might change their behaviour if you increase prices effectively enough. And then the other thing you might say is yes, but on the other hand, if you put up the price of cigarettes to 100 euros a box of 20, on the other hand, you might also then say, but then wouldn't that promote illegal cigarettes coming into the country? And then number one, then the government doesn't collect the tax and it collects a lot of tax cigarettes. But secondly, well, then of course that could also promote really not just illegal activity, but much more harmful activity even more again. So Elast history is how can we change things in such a way where we can still incentivise people to make a certain behaviour. But on the other hand, we also need to make sure that the consequences of that may well be something that we need to manage and control as well. Chapter six is all about costs. How does an economist think about costs? Well, an economist is going to think about costs naturally and often think about well, how do we handle the costs not just of our operation today but in the future? So a big company might employ an economist to look at trends in costs so that then they can predict the prices of their production in the future, but also they can look at how can we change our cost structure so that it's more effective and can lead to more sustainability in the future. So an example of one of those ways are if we are buying in a lot of goods from other countries, well, then of course, we're going to be buying possibly in sterling, possibly in dollars, possibly in Hong Kong dollars, possibly in Australian dollars. So an economist might then say, well, what is happening in each of those countries that could influence that exchange rate? Well, for example, maybe interest rates are going up in Australia and interest rates are going down in the US. Well, if interest rates are going up in Australia, well, the likelihood is that more people will want to buy Australian dollars to put the money in deposit there. So therefore, it's quite likely then that the exchange rate with the Australian dollar will change accordingly. So we might see a strengthening of the Australian dollar, whereas we might see a weakening of other currencies who are dropping their interest rates. So an economist might be brought in to say, okay, number one, let's look at our costs and see where they're going, see where we can predict inflation, et cetera. But also the costs of our costs. And an example of that might be in the case of our exchange. So how do we look and understand what's going on in the economies around the world of those places where we do business? So then we can think about an influence that in the future as well. Number seven, chapter seven is government intervention in the market. So how might an economist be needed in this regard? Well, there are so many countless ways where economists are needed to help the government make decisions. Because let's say the government decides that we are going to try to do three things. We're going to put more money back into people's pockets who are employed. We are going to encourage more parents into the workplace. And we also want to encourage more life life. Okay. So what do we do in order to do that? Step one, if we want to put more money back into the pockets of people who are employed, we might want to simply cut income tax. We're going to reduce income tax, or we're going to decrease the amount of income tax that we take on average relative to what somebody earns. Right. That's easy, isn't it? Yeah, but okay. But then if we do that, how do we make sure that we have enough money to invest in people's education to make sure that then they can get the jobs that they want in the future? And that's the type of thing that the economist needs to look at is what is the first order effect, second order effect, third order effect. The second one, maybe we want to encourage more parents to return to the workplace. Okay. So what do we do there? Well, we might say that we're going to subsidize the cost of childcare. And in addition to that, we are also going to make more training courses available to people to return to the workplace. Okay. So right, first of all, what we're going to do is that we're going to subsidize the cost of childcare. Okay. Great. And if we do that, though, how do we make sure then that there is enough money to be able to pay out tensions of the people who worked all their lives and contributed tax all their lives? And how do we make sure that there's enough money to pay them because they're not going to have children at 60 and 65 and 70 and 75. So how do we balance that? How do we make sure that we take care of one part of our society and at the same time balance it against the needs of the other one? And then the third one, we want to encourage more lifelong learning. Okay. If we're going to do that, though, how then do we make sure that we encourage lifelong learning, which means lifelong learning, by the way, is encouraging people to continue to build their education over time. So then you might say, okay, what we're going to do is we're going to create a new type of university in Ireland and it's going to be online university. And what happens is we're going to make courses available that are free, subsidized by the free, funded by the government. They're going to be certified by university. So that means that we're going to create a new type of a degree. And we're going to make these accessible to everybody over a certain age. And then we'll say, okay, that's great. That all sounds brilliant. What about areas that have unstable broadband? Okay, right. Well, what we'll do is that we fix the broadband first everywhere else. And that will take about five years. And then we go back to our plan about lifelong learning. And then you could say, yes, but everybody then that waited for those five years haven't had the opportunity for the lifelong learning. So does that mean so you're going to wait until then? And then all along the way, maybe things will change with Wi-Fi. So these are the types of things where there is a constant balance and trade off. And back to chapter two, economic concepts of scarcity and choice. These are the types of decisions that economists need to help with all the time. Chapter eight, market structures. Market structures is all about understanding how a specific market works, whether it's monopoly, whether it is an oligopoly, whether it is imperfect competition, or whether it is perfect competition. So I'm going to give you an example here of where a big company needs an economist. By the way, every company needs to think the way I'm about to explain to you now. And that is imperfect competition. So imperfect competition is where you have A, comparing against B, and they're imperfectly comparable. So that means that if I take one company and they provide smartphones and another company that provides smartphones, they need to be somehow a little bit different. Because otherwise, how can they compete against each other? And big companies often need to understand what we call its USP, unique selling point. So what they need to do is understand market research. What do consumers want? So let's say if it's market as well, people want sleek design, battery life, the ability to download certain apps, they also want to have a good durability where it lasts for a long time, all of those things. And you'll say, okay, but everybody wants that. So if you have got two big companies in the market, and sorry, that would be an oligopoly, let's go 10 companies in a market. How do they all compete against each other so that they appeal to different aspects in the market? And at the same time, then as a result, they enable one company to compete against each other where the market is served in a better way, which means that as consumers, we have more choice. And with that choice and with our money, then we can express which ones that we really want to reward. So we may want to reward the one that is the most sleek design. We may want to reward the one that has the most sustainable design. We might want to reward the one that has the best customer service. We might want to reward the one that is the most innovative. And when we have a situation of imperfect competition, well, then of course, the companies need economists to understand how to compete in that environment. Chapter nine, the labor market. So when it comes to the labor market, of course, labor is one of four factors of production, land, labor, capital, and enterprise. And when it comes to the labor market, this is somewhere where an economist often needs to understand how to recruit the talent that it needs in, let's say, an international organization. So if you have an international organization and let's say what they want to do is they want to strike a trade deal with another organization or with another country. So they are in between the two. And I often think there's so many great people in the world who would be brilliant in a job like this where they want to make a difference. They want to work in an international setting. And what they need to do and what they want to do is to find ways that you can bring two parties together and find a benefit in between the two. So let's just say that one country A and country B, right, we've got country A, which is very successful. It's very wealthy. It's got lots of taxes. It's doing really well. However, the cost of living is increasing dramatically. And it also has a very significant labor shortage. But then over here, we have country B. And in the case of country B, it is a place where it is growing steadily with its education. It is very poor infrastructure. It has got hardworking people, but people who haven't got an awful lot of education. So how could these two countries work together? Because one has a labor shortage and one has opportunities to develop the talent, but not the infrastructure, not the education in place in order to be able to exactly bridge this gap. What do you do? Well, you could have an organization between two. Let's say, for example, the World Bank. And the World Bank looks at this country and says, right, what do we need? Well, first of all, we need to be able to expand the resources of this country across and to what, for example, maybe it needs to offer students scholarships to go to this country to be able to train. Also, what this country needs is perhaps people need to go on internships over here to learn the ways of the working work. Another thing that needs to happen is this country might need to offer opportunities to people from this country to be able to go over there and train people in new technology. Another thing is that the World Bank might need to step in between the two to fund infrastructure developments over here so that then there is internet available for everybody, where then if there's online university happening over here, it can be streamed over here at the same time. Now, of course, what I'm giving you is a very delightful scenario where everything works out really well. But what you are doing there as an economist is that you're looking at a labor shortage in one place and you're looking at the talent pool over here in this place and thinking what needs to structurally happen to enable that to happen and then bring in the World Bank with its money and its resources and its network and its experiences, etc. Chapter 10 is market failure. And market failure is a situation where the market is not functioning because something has either gone wrong or something was never right in the first place. And an example of this might be a public good where nobody is going to pay for something that everybody can use like street lighting. So if we have got street lighting, if I'm going to pay for a street light outside my house, well then of course everybody has access to that street light. So why would I pay for it and not ask anybody else to pay for it? Well, unless I really really wanted a light outside my house, of course, but I'm certainly not going to pay for a light 10 miles away where there might be nobody living there. But on the other hand, what I'd really like is for my family to be able to travel safely along that road. So I'd like if the light was out there, you get my point. That's an example of a public good. It's where everybody has use of the good and no one person is incentivized in order to pay for it. This is an example of market failure. And this is an example of where you now need an economist to say, right, we know that public lights decrease crime. We know that public lights also decrease road accidents. We know that public lights are something that contributes to the livability in an area. So we know all those things. We need to figure out a budget in the government in order to facilitate these lights to go everywhere in the country. And we also know there's certain places where you need more lights rather than others, probably the places where there's going to be more people living. However, we might also then talk to another economist who is looking into trends and future and says, ha, but why not a second now? Why would we simply turn on the light at a certain time and turn off the light at a certain time or pay somebody to turn on the light at a certain time and turn off at a certain time? Instead, why don't we actually get some sort of a sensor in there where the light would come on and go off as the light changes? Because, of course, we know that every day, days get long on the chart. And then another economist says, okay, but actually I have another idea. Why don't we talk to a technologist, somebody who's working technology, and let's think about the fact that the pole that the light is on could also act as something as well. This could be part of the Internet of Things because maybe cameras could be embedded into it where cameras could be watching, for example, anything that's going on in the area. And if there is an accident or something like that, well, then that camera could be used. Or that camera or that sensor might also count the number of people passing it so that then we can think about how many people pass that lamp at certain points in a day because maybe we could use that data to then think about how often a bus needs to arrive for people who are commuting in different directions. And then somebody else might say, okay, what other function could that be? Like, could that be a place where people in the local school can come and decorate that lamp every week in a different way and then we could use it for street art as well? So that's the type of thing that the technologist would do is to say, okay, let's just think here about, right, number one, we've got public goods. Without market failure, nobody's going to be incentivized to do this. Okay, how do we fund this from a budget? What other functions within society could it serve? What other ways could we link in with other people to think about how to actually use that? And by the way, what I'm describing there, I've gotten down the road of that's what a smart city project is all about. Smart cities are where governments and companies and international organizations come together to think about how to make cities more livable, smarter, more connected and offering more public spaces, et cetera. Chapter 11, national income. How does an economist look at this? Well, this is where we traditionally think about a macro economist where they are looking at GDP of a country and they're measuring that GDP. So they're looking at C plus I plus G plus NX. So they're looking at consumption plus investment plus government expenditure plus net exports. And what they're doing there is they're looking at this to understand what is driving the economy. Is it the growth of consumption? Is it that more people are spending more out of their wages every day? Is it investment? Is it that companies are borrowing money and then they're building machinery in fact? Is it that companies that are involved in services are investing more in tools and technologies and digital scenarios where then they can make their staff more effective? Is that I? Or is it G? Is the government spending? Is the government spending more money on health care and child care and social welfare and public services and all of those other things? Is that what's driving the economy? Or is it net exports? And net exports is exports minus imports. So is it that actually there's more and more and more companies exporting abroad and that as that money comes into the country in comparison we're buying in less from abroad ourselves. And why is that interesting? Well of course it is hugely interesting because if people are spending more then the question is is that sustainable? Can people keep spending more and are they now at risk of potentially in the future if there was a recession they might lose their jobs and then we would need more social welfare to have in the future. Or when it comes to investment if businesses aren't investing enough in infrastructure, in their staff, in their tools, in their technologies does that mean that Ireland could lose pace in comparison to other parts of the world where they are investing in all of those things and then there comes a point where people say well instead of doing business with a company in Ireland who want to do business with a company abroad or is it G? Is the government spending? And if it is government spending is driving the economy well then we have to think about where is the government getting its money? Tax of course that's where it's getting its money and is the tax base sustainable? So are we taking in money from places like income and that which we know people earn all the time, people spend all the time or is it from other places? Is it from where they're buying and selling houses? Is it from where it's only corporation tax where we're relying on certain companies making awful out of profit? Keeping their operations here and then of course paying that tax to the Irish government because if there's parts of that tax base that isn't sustainable well then of course this could lead to problems down the road if something was to affect a company a really big company that's based here or if there was a dramatic downturn in the amount of property bought and sold etc. Chapter 12 is fiscal policy and the budget framework. So we need economists to understand how to use the resources of the government in the best way to stimulate demand and to also manage the resource of the country well. So for example let's just say the government acknowledges there's a lot of money coming in from corporation tax. Okay we don't need all this money to spend today in Ireland. As a result we have got a budget service. So we know the taxes that we are collecting is actually more than the amount that we need to spend on healthcare, social welfare, public services etc. And when I say that there is enough there to spend on what it means there are decisions that the government comes together and makes in its voted expenditure. Now we know that there is a service so do we make a decision to spend more today? Do we make a decision to reduce the amount of tax we pay or do we make a different decision which is that we put this money aside into a sovereign wealth fund or a fund of some sovereign by the way the word sovereign means government. So do we put it into a government fund and we will invest that or save that for the future and for the future might be increasing age of population so there's going to be more costs for pensions in the future. Is it because well we know there will be greater costs of climate change in the future? Is it because we now know that the population is growing and as a result we now know that we need to make sure that there's money put away for those people in the future as the population grows and it may grow because people are living longer, people are traveling here and also because of climate change people find climate easier to live in. And if we do that well then we also need to think about if we're going to put money into the future like what about the problems of today? So what about challenges to do with rent? What about challenges to do with under-resourced services in our in our economy? What about people who can't get access to education from certain parts of the country? What about people who are finding it really difficult to manage based on how inflation is? All of those questions all are woven right into what an economist needs to look at and they're not easily answered questions they're really really not and they can be complicated and they might need a lot of data and by the time you get all the data and you get through it all things might have changed again so it really isn't easy and that's why you need an economist to help out. Chapter 13 employment and non-employment if you are trying to make decisions about how to as an after-profit organization how to help people who have been for example in long-term unemployment then you need to understand the economics of long-term unemployment. How does long-term unemployment happen? Well first of all what is it? Long-term unemployment is being out of employment for more than 12 months and what happens in order to get to that point? Well of course in some cases it can be that companies close down and that might be because they're relocating to a lower cost environment that could be because the company has too much competition and can no longer function that could be for a range of different reasons. So if you have people who have been made unemployed because of redundancy or because the company shut down that is obviously one reason. Another reason might be because they can't find a job with the skill set they have maybe that skill set isn't needed anymore. So take for example in the future if we only have self-driving cars well then what would happen to taxi drivers? What would happen to delivery drivers? What would happen to deliver room drivers? What would happen to train drivers? What would happen to bus drivers? So the question is then if somebody doesn't have a skill set that is needed in employment well then again what do you do? Well then one might say well then you need to create new learning and development opportunities for them to be able to go and retrain and of course that's only possible if number one those facilities are there and number two if those jobs are there in the future as well. So that could be another reason. Another reason it could be that somebody is in a position where they're in a poverty trap where the social welfare that they're getting would actually make them better off than if they went to work in the workplace and that can happen and if that is the case well then of course you need to think about well the only way that would happen is if the money that that person would earn is low enough in comparison to social welfare benefits. So how do you incentivize people to be able to apply for higher earning jobs? Again you're probably back to education you're back to interview skills and also making sure that those jobs are actually out there and available for people. And then another one could be well over time they've lost confidence and if they've lost confidence in their own abilities if they've lost confidence in their if they've been told no if they've been rejected for lots and lots of jobs well then it can be very hard to pick yourself up and to go back out into the workforce again. So then the international organization I'm sorry the not-for-profit organization might say well then we need to get in I mean to talk to people coach them out of this situation and get them to a point where they do have the confidence to put themselves forward. So to give you an example of a not-for-profit that does something like this would be Dress for Success. It's an organization a charity where it does exactly this it's coaching its interview skills its CV development and also matching people with industry as well in order to get there to to that point. Chapter 14 is monetary policy and price level. So when it comes to this this is an area where there's lots of economists working already and there are so many people understanding the nuance of inflation. How is inflation happening? So if there's inflation in house prices does that also mean there's inflation in food prices if there's inflation in energy? How is that affecting people's ability to pay their mortgage? Is there inflation in goods and services at a luxury level but not goods and services at a more basic level? So inflation is really complicated again and also maybe inflation is coming from different places like inflation could be coming from a place where there's loads and loads of demand and the only way to service all of that demand is put the price up. So for example tickets for a concert and just think of whoever you like whoever you'd like to see in concert just think about if there was 10 million people in the world who wanted to go and see that particular artist and let's say there's only 70 000 seats in Crow Park. I know obviously there's pretty dramatic now of a difference but the point I'm making is is that would be demand full inflation. So demand is pulling the price up and then alternatively let's just say instead we'd need an economist to understand the costs of producing something. So for example if the cost of energy is going up then any business that uses light and heat is going to have an increase in cost and then that could push the cost of everything up. So instead then of trying to figure out okay how do we help businesses manage their costs and economists could actually say well all we need to do is niche it right down and understand how to manage energy costs because if we manage energy costs if they can come down well then of course the cost of every business can lower. So more than others because an energy intensive business they certainly would have more cost let's say than a company where a lot of their staff are working from home. But and then of course the other one is important inflation. So this is where an economist might say okay we need to understand how much a typical Irish household is buying in from abroad. For example we all know that in Ireland we import a huge amount of our digital services. If you think about anything you're spending money on online chances are there's going to be a relative minimum amount of that is going to be spent in an Irish business in comparison to other businesses think about it. So therefore if let's say you're spending money in dollars because you're buying services from a US company well then of course the impact of the dollar or sorry the exchange rate of the dollar is going to have an impact on you. So in that case when it comes to understanding inflation and how to handle inflation so if we put up interest rates is that in Ireland sorry in the EU of course there's no interest rates in Ireland. If we're going to put up interest rates in the EU well then how is that going to affect the person who's trying to buy a stream again from somewhere in the US or where they're buying something online from the UK because that's the story. And that's the type of thing an economist would look at is the nuance of inflation and then how to handle inflation so that it really makes a difference. The next one chapter 15 the financial sector this has a big impact on us as well because in this case you might be working in a bank right which is of course in the financial sector and this time a bank might be thinking about right we know we can borrow money from the ECB at x percent and we also know that we want 100,000 mortgages over the next 10 years so if we were to be able to lend out that money to people then what we'd be able to do is borrow the money from the ECB and lend it out to the higher rate to people. The thing is though is that of course some people want fixed mortgages where they're paying at a fixed rate some people want variable mortgages because of course they want to repay at a variable rate which means that they would pay more if the ECB rate goes up unless if the ECB rate goes down. So an economist working in the financial sector would then be looking at how where the ECB rates might be going and again that's a rising there from Wakuzan manipulation but also demand that happens in the country because the higher the house prices go of course then the more money they're going to need to demand in our buy a house and of course what house prices are predicated on is the ability to borrow what's that predicated on of course it's predicated on people's ability to repay that mortgage and what's that predicated on wages and what's that predicated on the amount of employment available in the country and so on and on and on from there. So therefore if you're an economist working in a bank you're going to be looking at all of these things you're going to be looking at what's going on at the ECB what's going on with inflation so what's going on in inflation in Germany can have a really big impact of somebody who's borrowing a mortgage in Kerry really big impact and the economist who's working the bank needs to be right at the heart of that. Chapter 16 economic growth and development how would an economist be working here well in the case of economic growth and development this is somebody like the United Nations the European Commission you'll have to look at the world in a collection of countries and say how do we deal with the issues that are here so issues might be inequality issues might be where some countries have really really really big government debt and so much money so much money that it takes in in tax is then being spent on servicing that debt and paying back that debt there isn't the money to invest in services that are there in the country so what can you do about that well that is what economic growth and development is all about and economic growth and development isn't just about money but it's also about opportunity it's about quality of life it's about the ability for people to have the prospect to take to move further for them to be able to earn more money in the future because they can either get education or get better opportunities or have the possibility to be able to have more opportunity in the future and economic growth and development is all about that but then it's also about looking at the consequences or externalities of economic growth so if for example let's just say Ireland had a massive economic boom right loads and loads everybody's employed which is close enough to what full employment means so there's lots and lots of money that's in the country and as a result everybody goes out and borrows lots of money and it builds huge big houses and then on top of that lots of people go out and they buy electric cars well you just think about the consequences now what I've just said number one if everybody's employed well then we're not going to have foreign direct investment coming in here anymore looking for to offer more people jobs because it wouldn't really if there was loads and loads and loads of people for loads and loads and loads of money that's fine but what if a recession comes and then those people can't repay that another one if loads of people then all buy electric cars and everybody's traveling everywhere then of course you could have congestion on the roads very significant congestion on those and if they're electric cars then they might not be able to get to the destination in order to recharge so if you take all of that into consideration while economic growth has happened economically then socially you could be creating other problems that is the challenge of an economist as well is to think what needs to happen with society the environment politically legally with regulation etc to enable that economic growth to be positive for most people and chapter 17 globalization so chapter 17 is all about how businesses can buy from other businesses in different parts of the world and here an economist needs to look at for example what is coming down the tracks in terms of European legislation that can make things either much more difficult or much easier for businesses so in 2002 Ireland joined the euro and this was going to make it so much easier for Irish businesses for example to do business with French businesses German businesses Italian businesses etc because you're going to have one exchange rate which is one Irish euro equal one German euro was the same exchange rate it also meant that when it came to buying and selling that then you didn't have to take foreign exchange into consideration so simply my Irish bank account could pay your German bank account and without having to pay a bank fee in the middle to exchange that money so there's an example of globalization that makes it really much easier right an example on the other hand then we had Brexit and then Brexit made it much harder because now you were going to have let's say Irish companies and companies in the UK where they're one of two different sets of rules instead of everybody having the guidance around goods and the quality of goods and what established the quality of goods rather than having that of where it was uniform you have then the UK having its set of rules and then separately you have Ireland having its set of rules and then of course that is an example of reverse globalization because then it's not as easy to do business between each other and the last one international trade and competitiveness so this might be a development organization like enterprise Ireland where it says okay what we need to do is we need to enable Irish companies to do more business abroad why we would want to do that is if more Irish companies are doing business abroad there's no money coming into the economy so why don't more companies export that would be a question that an economist might ask and then they need to understand the problems well number one it's costly to be traveling to international countries and well sorry other countries perhaps it's difficult because there's different regulation in different parts of the world and then you have to create maybe a new product for new service that is tailored to that perhaps people don't want to spend a lot of time away from their families and as a result they would much prefer to have businesses here locally so that then they can be at home with their families more and also we may have satisfying which we talk about as well and satisfying is people not everybody wants to build a business to the biggest degree instead some people are happy and satisfied with the sufficient level of profit so within all of that we have to say right so who then are the entrepreneurs out there who do want to do business abroad but are being stopped in some way by something that the government can help with and that could be then through its sets of trade missions right so an economist would say we can see that the three fastest growing economies in the world is this country this country this country what we're going to do is we're going to encourage the government to set up a trade mission and we're going to bring businesses out there we're going to pay for them to go out there we're going to set up meetings for them out there so that then all of the challenges and finding who the customers are and figuring out how to organize meetings with them and the costs associated with traveling to there all of that is taken care of by the government so that then as a result of those businesses can get on between business in those countries and encourage exports along the way now I have delivered upon my promise which is to talk about what does an economist really do and I also said that I would do it within the hour so they are all the types of jobs and there's many more but they're all the types of jobs that an economist could have for a start and then secondly they're also the different types of employers that employers are customers that can have and thirdly that is how an economist job links in with every single chapter in positive economics so thank you all so much indeed for being here with me I appreciate you spending an hour of your time listening to all of that and of course like I say feel free to reach out and ask any questions that you want and all this delighted to hear from you until our next positive economics webinar thank you all and every best wish