Understanding what influences farmers’ decisions to participate in a voluntary agri-environmental scheme(AES) is essential for gauging scheme success. The Rural Environment Protection Scheme (REPS) was a voluntary AES that was available to all Irish farmers from 1994 to 2009. This paper models...

In this paper we outline the use of a farm level spatial microsimulation model that is used to produce small area farm population microdata estimates of the probability of participation by Irish farmers in the Rural Environmental Protection Scheme (REPS) for the year 2005. Previous studies that...

The Rural Environment Protection Scheme (REPS) was introduced under Council Regulation 2078/92 in order to encourage farmers to carry out their activities in a more extensive and environmentally friendly manner. This article, using National Farm Survey (NFS) data, examines the extent to which...

Multi-attribute revealed preference data are used to investigate the heterogeneity of tastes in a sample of kayakers in relation to a panel of eleven whitewater sites in Ireland. The paper focuses on a comparison of the analysis of preference heterogeneity using a random parameter logit model...

Contingent valuation has been used extensively in estimating the value of environmental goods. One criticism of this approach, however, is that respondents in referendum-style contingent valuation surveys may express citizen assessments that take into account benefits to others rather than...

The rural landscape can be thought of as a non-market commodity associated with the multifunctional aspect of agriculture and the need for its conservation is gaining more prominence in EU policy. This paper explored the Irish general public’s willingness to pay (WTP) for agricultural...

Using eight years of data of the National Farm Survey (NFS) to analyse the farm earnings distribution in the period 1994 to 2001 we ask the question: is the Irish farming sector close to a society where individuals move up and down the earnings ladder over time or is it more similar to a society...

This paper reviews a statistical matching technique used to match the Irish Census of Agriculture to the Irish National Farm Survey (NFS) to produce a farm level spatial microsimulation model for Ireland. Using statistical matching techniques, economists can now create attribute rich datasets by...

We propose a multi-stage modelling approach for simultaneously estimating the total number and aggregate value of recreation-related visits to a small-scale community forest in the West of Ireland. Simulated spatially-referenced individuals from a spatial microsimulation model for Ireland...

This paper analyses the effect accessibility has on General Practitioner (GP) utilisation rates at the sub-national level for Ireland. Specifically, the aim of this paper is to estimate whether there is an urban/rural differential in GP utilisation rates. We do this by simulating micro-level...