ABSTRACT
Investment and credit creation are important elements in economic development, both in terms of the areas private sector investment is directed towards and the role played by government in prioritizing specific areas for public investment. Productive investment is crucial in a developing economy and modern economic growth theory places emphasis on the phenomenon of convergence: the tendency of low-income economies to grow faster than wealthier economies, due to higher investment, which in turn was encouraged by the relatively higher rate of return on capital in poorer economies. This chapter broadly considers how many of these issues impacted on economic development in independent Ireland since 1922.
