<< (Which is now richer than its former colonial ruler, the UK.) >>
Not yet. If you check out the article, Wolf makes the distinction between GDP per head (a measure of economic activity in Ireland) and GNP per head (a measure of the actual national income of the Irish).
In Ireland, the ratio of GNP to GDP is about 80% -- they have a lot of foreign companies which pay their earnings straight out overseas and so are part of GDP but not GNP. In the UK, the ratio is substantially above 100%, because we're such big net owners of overseas assets.
So -- the Irish produce more than us, but we're richer. It was a bit naughty of Wolf to say this in the text, but print a chart that carried the opposite message. BTW, have you seen his ludicrous doublethink on the subject of labout protection laws in today's FT? sorry can't provide a link because bizarrely, our firewall blocks ft.com.
dd
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