This paper proposes a new concept of rural development in an uncertain world. The nature of risk and uncertainty is discussed and risk management is defined as a positive model of economic and social behaviour. Some relevant paradigms for rural development are briefly reviewed and evaluated...

Rural development was traditionally associated with agriculture. The policy shift towards integrated rural development reflects the complex linkages and interactions within the system of overall rural development. Putting too much emphasis on agriculture and ignoring its linkages to the rest of...

The standard Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) approach to investigating the underlying dynamics of economic variables assumes a constant co-integration space. This paper relaxes this assumption by implementing a regime switching VECM that allows for shifts in both the drift and the long-run...

This paper tests whether the Law of Proportionate Effects (Gibrat, 1931), which states that farms grow at a rate that is independent of their size, holds for the dairy farms in Northern Ireland. Previous studies have tended to concentrate on testing whether the law holds for all farms. The...

The selection of ‘representative’ farms in farm level modelling where results are aggregated to the sector level is critically important if the effects of aggregation bias are to be reduced. The process of selecting representative farms normally involves the use of cluster analysis where the...

The expected utility approach to decision making advocates a probability vision of the world and labels any deviation from it ‘irrational’. This paper reconsiders the rationality argument and argues that calculating risks is not a viable strategy in an uncertain world. Alternative strategies...