Dr Martina Lawless is a Research Professor at the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI). Before joining the ESRI, she received her doctorate from Trinity College Dublin and worked as a research economist at the Central Bank of Ireland.  Her research has focused primarily on firm-level dynamics and decision making, covering a range of topics such as access to finance for small and medium firms, effects of taxation and participation in exporting. More recently, she has investigated the potential effects of Brexit and COVID-19 on firms in Ireland.  Her work has been published in a number of leading international academic and policy journals.  From 2017 to 2020, she was a member of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council.