‘Shall I compare thee?’ Evaluating Finance Ministers

Abstract

Over the past century, the methods used to evaluate Finance Ministers have evolved from the close scrutiny of individual biographies to the statistical analysis of aggregated data. This paper explores this evolution within the framework of economic theory and applies the results in an Irish context. It concludes that while statistical methods can provide some support for certain hypotheses, they are not yet advanced enough to entirely replace the traditional political economy approach.

Keywords

• finance ministers
• ireland
• statistical analysis
• methods of evaluation