The Irish Miracle

[Seth Ackerman]

Does someone want to comment on Martin Wolf's column in the Financial Times
today about Ireland? The column is accompanied by a chart of Irish per
capita GDP as a percentage of the UK's and of the OECD average. It's quite
remarkable: from about 56% to about 102% of the OECD average between 1970
and 1997. Ireland is now substantially richer than the UK.

To the unschooled (like me) the Irish "miracle" seems to contradict the
notion that successful development can't be done with the orthodox package
of free trade, FDI, and "prudent" macro policies. Anyone else know better?