The importance of accounting for unobserved heterogeneity, state-dependence and differences in residual variances across groups: An application to Irish Farmers land market participation decisions

working paperLand is an essential input into agricultural production. A grwoing literature is concerned with the factors influencing farmers’ land market participation decisions in developing countries, with developed countries largely ignored. Current best-practise in the land market participation literature is exemplified by Holden et al. (2007) who use a dynamic model which allows for state-dependence and unobserved heterogeneity. Much of the literature fails to adequately deal with these features of land market decisions. In addition, a single model is used to represent all farm types. In this paper, we firstly consider the factors influencing land market participation decisions in a developing country, Ireland, while allowing for state-dependence, unobserved heterogeneity and differences across farm tyes. We compare these results to those that are obtained while ignoring state-dependence, unobserved heterogeneity and differences between farm types. Our results suggest that some caution may be warranted when these aspects are ignored when if fact they are present

The Rural Economy Research Centre

End of project report ENARPRIThe economic impact of trade policy reform receives less attention than the impact of trade policy on the environment. In part this may be due to the secondary importance attributed to environmental issues when economic consequences take centre stage. However, another consideration may be the difficulties of bringing together models which examine the economic impact of trade policy reform and models which can provide measures of environmental indicators. This study combines a partial equilibrium economic commodity model with a model for the estimation of agricultural input usage and GHG emissions. The paper examines one aspect of the relationship between trade policy and the environment, namely that between agricultural trade policy reform and indicators relating to emissions of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) from agriculture. The paper examines the impact of agricultural production levels and production practices on the level of GHG emissions from agriculture in Ireland under a Baseline of the recent reform of EU agricultural policy and an alternate scenario where trade policy reforms resulting from a future World Trade Organisation Doha Development Round agreement to reveal the extent to which there are significant environmental impacts which should be considered in addition to the conventional economic considerations.FAPRI-Ireland Partnershi

Impact analysis of the CAP reform on main agricultural commodities

End of project reportThis study has been carried out for the European Commission's Joint Research Centre to analyze agricultural policies at Member State, EU15 and EU25 levels as well as for Bulgaria and Romania. The modelling tool allows for projections and policy analysis (up to a 10 year horizon) for the enlarged EU.This study has been carried out for the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, under Contract no 150267-2005-FIED-N

Potential WTO Trade Reform: Multifunctionality Impacts for Ireland?. CEPS ENARPRI Working Papers No. 16, 7 June 2006

The economic impact of trade policy reforms on various sectors of the economy receives more attention than the effects on the environment. This may be partly owing to the secondary importance attributed to environmental or multifunctionality issues when economic consequences take centre stage. An additional consideration, however, may be the practical difficulties of bringing together models that examine the economic impact of trade policy reforms and models that can measure environmental or multifunctionality indicators. This paper examines one aspect of the relationship between trade policy and the environment, namely that between agricultural trade policy reform and emissions from the agricultural sector. The paper analyses the impact of agricultural production levels and practices on the level of greenhouse gas (GHG) and ammonia emissions from this sector in Ireland. The study combines an economic, partial equilibrium, agricultural commodity and inputs model (the FAPRI-Ireland model) with a model for the estimation of GHG and ammonia emissions from agriculture. The paper considers a potential reform of agricultural trade policy under a possible World Trade Organisation agreement, to reveal the extent to which there are environmental effects associated with such a reform that need to be considered in addition to the conventional economic ones

CAP reform post 2013: Examining the equity dimensions of agricultural support.

This research was supported by EU FP6 research funding, contract. SSPE-CT-2005- 021543.Using a dynamic multi-product partial equilibrium model, this paper firstly examines the potential impact of recent policy changes accruing from the mid term review of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 2003 on the cattle and sheep sectors in Ireland. Secondly, this paper evaluates the potential impact of the implementation of a CAP budget neutral, common EU flat area payment across all Member States. The European Commission has signalled that it will be evaluating current differences in the level of support between Member States as, for example, in the explanatory memorandum accompanying the Commission’s Health Check proposals the Commission argues that it is “increasingly harder to justify the legitimacy of significant individual differences in the support level which are only based on past support” (CEC, 2008; p.18). This paper demonstrates how there are significant differences in the level of CAP payments per hectare across Member States, as generally farmers in more prosperous Western and Nordic countries receive a much higher level of payment per hectare than farmers in relatively poorer Central and Eastern European countries. In relation to Ireland, similar to most other EU-15 countries, farmers benefit from the current inequitable distribution of payments and the results indicate that any move towards equalising the level of payments per hectare will have a significant negative impact on agricultural production and net trade.This research was supported by EU FP6 research funding, contract. SSPE-CT-2005- 021543

The 2003 CAP reform: Do decoupled payments affect agricultural production?

working paperThe move from coupled payment policy instruments to payments that are decoupled from production have made estimating future trends in agricultural output much more challenging. Using a dynamic multi product partial equilibrium model, the overall aim of this paper is to examine the potential supply inducing effect of decoupled payments. This issue is important in the context of WTO negotiations, and, in particular, in discussions surrounding the appropriateness of decoupled payments being included as a ‘green box’ policy. The results suggest that farm operators, to a large extent, do not treat these payments as fully decoupled and they do in fact maintain a strong supply inducing effect on agricultural production. Findings suggest, however, that this trade distorting effect is less than previously coupled payments

Study on the Functioning of Land Markets in the EU Member states under the Influence of Measures applied under the Common Agricultural Policy

End of project reportStudy on the Functioning of Land Markets in the EU Member states under the Influence of Measures applied under the Common Agricultural Polic

Cap reform: implications for Ireland

working paperIncreasingly farmers can be viewed as multifunctional providers of a range of commodity and non-commodity goods that are valued by society. Changes to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) such as the shift towards decoupled payments not only have significant effects on agriculture but also rural areas and society more generally. Given that the CAP is likely to be the most significant driving force for change in the Irish countryside, it will be important to assess the impact of policy changes. Using a dynamic, multi-product, partial equilibrium model, this paper firstly examines the potential impact of recent policy changes accruing from the Mid-Term Review of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). In addition, this paper highlights additional potential reforms of the CAP and discusses their implications for the Irish agricultural sector.European Commission 6th Framewor

An Econometric Model of Irish Beef Exports

End of Project ReportThis report summarizes research that the author undertook as part of his doctoral studies in the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of Missouri- Columbia.† The policy environment within which the Irish beef sector operates is changing such that the demand for Irish beef will increasingly be of a market rather than a policy determined nature. This changing environment makes knowledge concerning the demand for Irish beef important to understanding the economic prospects of the sector. The objectives of this research were thus two fold. The first objective was to investigate the demand for Irish beef in the UK. The second objective relates to how such consumer demand models are econometrically estimated. The empirical results show that the demand for beef in general in the UK is not price elastic and that the demand for Irish beef in the UK is price inelastic. The expenditure elasticity of demand for beef in the UK is also inelastic. The implications of this result for the Irish beef industry are as follows Decreases in the price of beef in the UK will not lead to large increases in British demand for beef. Increases in expenditure on meats will see expenditure on beef increase but to a lesser extent than other meats. Increases in the price of Irish beef relative to the prices of other beef products on the UK market will not lead to a large decrease in the market share of Irish beef. The relative insensitivity of demand for Irish beef in the UK to changes in its relative price also implies that attempts to increase the Irish share of the UK beef market will require very large reductions in the price of Irish beef. Given the current dependence of the Irish beef industry on subsidized exports to non-EU markets, the results of this research imply that attempts to re-orientate the Irish industry more towards servicing EU beef markets will require either large price decreases, with the consequent impacts on the market based revenue of the Irish beef industry and farmers, or alternatively, a movement towards the production of beef products that appeal to the non-price concerns of EU consumers and away from the production of a commodity product

Modelling the impact of the recession on greenhouse gases from agriculture in Ireland

working paperThe effects of the recession of 2009 have been felt across the economy of Ireland. The rapid contraction in economic activity has had its effect on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as well. It is possible to model the recession’s effect on agricultural GHG in the FAPRI-Ireland GHG model using the latest international commodity price projections from Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI). The FAPRI-Ireland GHG model creates projections of future levels of Irish agricultural activity and then uses a mix of national and default emissions factors to convert this activity to estimates of annual GHG emissions from now to 2020. Our model is shocked using post-downturn commodity price projections for a selection of exogenous prices. The changes to these international commodity prices reflect the international market response to the downturn, and as such they have an impact on the level of GHG emitted by the agricultural sector in Ireland. This analysis finds that, despite the depth and breadth of the recession, the impact on GHG emissions from Irish agriculture has been muted. The impact of the shock is to reduce the projected annual emissions from the sector by only 0.14 Mt by 2020. This compares to the 2.97 Mt reduction in annual emissions which the sector would have to achieve if, for example, a reduction target of 20 percent on 2005 levels were to be imposed