Creating Regional Wealth in the Innovation Economy: Models, Perspectives, and Best Practices

Chapter 5. Enterprise Spirit and Trade Union Social Contract

Ireland: Europe's High-Tech Hub

Ireland, a small island at the edge of the continental shelf, attracts a quarter of the U.S.'s high-tech investment into Europe, although it accounts for a mere 1% of Europe's population. It provides the highest rate of return on that investment, a whopping 24% according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. With phenomenal growth rates (11% in 2000) in real GDP over the past decade, and the highest proportion of exports (90%) of GDP, Ireland has turned itself around from being the poor man of Europe into one of the shining lights of the global economy, earning the epithet of Celtic Tiger and attracting policymakers and planners from all over the world ...