There is no version of macroeconomics that recommends a budgetary stimulus at full employment. Spending your way out of a boom has no champions in the ranks of the Dismal Science, right or left, living or dead. There is pervasive evidence that the Irish economy is indeed at full employment and in danger of overheating. This is clearest in the labour market where the jobless rate is below 4 per cent despite rising labour force participation and ongoing inward migration. Unemployment has never been lower and business firms in sectors without trade unions have been implementing pay increases. A stimulus…

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