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In September 2014, the people of Scotland will vote in a referendum proposing that Scotland should become an independent country. If voters in Scotland accept the proposal, Scotland would become a new country. The White Paper containing the case for independence (Scottish Government, 2013) clearly states that an independent Scotland would continue to be an open economy. In these circumstances, foreign direct investment (FDI) both inward and outward, and foreign trade, would be central to the Scottish economy. In effect, a yes vote leads to the creation of a new small developed economy that is heavily integrated into the global economy. In different parts of the world, separatist movements are seeking to break away from the countries they currently are part of, for example, Wallonia and Flanders in Belgium, Catalonia, and the Basque Country in Spain, Quebec in Canada, various parts of Indonesia and in many other places. International business research has not investigated the implications for FDI and trade of the possibilities of successful separatist movements creating new small open economies. It is possible that a number of new small open economies could emerge in the coming years. There is research, but not much, on existing small open economies and FDI and trade (Barry and Kearney, 2006; Hooley et al, 1996). This work reveals that small open economies can prosper and attract considerable volumes of FDI that often stimulates exports.

This is a study of three models of partnership between Trinity College Dublin and higher education institutes in six African countries. The goal is to deliver collaborative doctoral training programmes in global health, natural sciences and economics, to train researchers and build research and teaching capacity in African institutions, which is increasingly seen as a key influence on economic development. The purpose of this study was to assess the three models employed in order to understand their strengths and weaknesses, capture lessons from our partnerships and make recommendations to others establishing North-South doctoral training programmes. Findings from qualitative interviews revealed strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for each model, and the specific strengths, challenges, recommendations and implications for future programme improvements are highlighted and discussed.

Ireland’s remarkable economic performance over the course of the 1990s, which saw GNP per head rise from below 70 per cent to rough parity with the EU average, is frequently ascribed to its willing embrace of globalization. It is one of the most open economies in the world, not just in terms of the product market but of the labour market as well, and has by far the highest EU proportion of the manufacturing workforce employed in foreign-owned firms. Yet these have been features of the Irish economy ever since the 1970s, if not earlier, and Irish performance over most of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s exemplified failure rather than success. There was no convergence over this period, with GNP per head remaining at around 65 per cent of the UK and EU levels. In fact the other EU periphery countries — Greece, Spain and Portugal — though less globalized, performed better in convergence terms during the 1960s.

Membership of the European Union has impacted on Ireland and the Irish economy in many ways. The primary focus of this chapter is on the impact of the Single Market process and the Structural Funds expenditure programmes To many readers is might appear strange that we have little to say on the impact of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). There are two reasons for this. The first is that, as is clear from Chapter 1, agricultural output has not contributed to Ireland’s dramatically improved output performance over the course of the 1990s, while employment in agriculture has continued to fall. Since the present study is concerned with identifying the causes of the strong performance of the economy, we need not therefore linger too long on agriculture. (This is not to suggest of course that agriculture is unimportant, merely that it is tangential to the present study.) The second reason why we ignore the consequences of the CAP is that is it difficult to determine the alternative or baseline scenario against which these consequences are to be measured. Is it, for example, a situation where an equivalent degree of protection has to be funded by domestic taxpayers and consumers, or is it instead a free world market in agricultural products? Fortunately we do not have to consider this difficult question here.

The nature of the Irish economy, and the definition of Ireland’s economic problem, were shaped by a combination of events that occurred in the nineteenth century. One of these was the large-scale emigration that the Great Famine induced. This left as its legacy a willingness and an ability on the part of the population to migrate when economic prospects elsewhere seemed brighter. Ireland henceforth functioned more as a regional economy, whose population expands or contracts as economic conditions dictate, than as a national economy whose population size is determined largely by demographic factors. As Krugman (1997) points out, national productivity determines the well-being of a national economy, regardless of the sectors in which the economy specializes. The size of a regional economy on the other hand is crucially determined by its export base (or more generally by its international competitiveness); if exports collapse, for example, regional income falls, expenditure on non-tradeables declines, and workers emigrate.

From the early 1930s to the late 1950s high tariff barriers and a broad prohibition on foreign ownership of firms operating in Ireland were the cornerstone of policies designed to promote growth of indigenous manufacturing from the very low base inherited at independence in 1922. By the late 1950s it was clear that protectionism had long outlived its usefulness and that few of the so-called infant industries had matured and become sufficiently competitive to generate much in the way of exports (O Grada, 1997).