All the chapters and the statistical data have been updated where possible. There is an abundance of new material relating to important issues such as: - Economic stabilisation and recovery in the late 1980s and the reasons for the 'Celtic Tiger' growth rates achieved in the 1990s. - Unemployment and inflation - Cost and benefits of European Monetary Union, convergence and recent developments relating to the introduction of a single currenty - National wage agreements - Exchange and interest rate determination The discussion of Irish economic performance is conducted in a comparative framework making extensive use of data from other countries in the European Union and Northern Ireland.