Staff in the economic division regularly produce working papers that explore and analyse macroeconomic, microeconomic and fiscal issues to help inform policy formation.
The analysis and views set out in these working papers are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Finance or the Minister for Finance.
Note: This paper is an update of a previous version of the paper that was published with Budget 2017 on 11 October 2016. Following publication of the October 2016 version, the CSO released updated data which is now included in the revised paper.