This paper uses a fundamental Q model of investment to consider the role played by financing frictions in agricultural investment decisions, controlling econometrically for censoring, heterogeneity and errors-in-variables. Our findings suggest that farmer's investment decisions are not driven by...

In December 2009 the Irish Department of Agriculture launched the Dairy Efficiency Programme. The Programme, which is operated through a series of discussion groups, is designed to promote technology transfer to dairy farmers. Drawing on National Farm Survey data from 2009, the purpose of this...

Recent reform of the Common Agricultural Policy has led to the decoupling of direct payments to farmers from production. This policy change is expected to make farmers’ production decisions more market oriented as their subsidy revenue maximization objectives become profit maximizing...

The competitiveness and productivity of Irish agriculture has been at the forefront of debate in recent times given successive and impending changes to agricultural policy. This paper examines the trend in total factor productivity in Irish agriculture over the recent past and explores the...

This paper conducts a detailed, micro-focused investigation on the implications of recent agricultural policy changes on the structure of production systems in Ireland, Denmark and the Netherlands in terms of farm numbers, system switching, specialisation, the role of economies of scale, on-farm...

The recent reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) have exposed the European agricultural sector to a new set of constraints and challenges. The decoupling of direct payments from production is expected to make production decisions more market-oriented as farmers move from mainly subsidy...

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the foodservice industries in both Ireland and the UK. Each industry is analysed separately using the most recently available Household Budget Survey datasets for Ireland and the most recent Expenditure and Food Datasets for the UK and is...

The aim of this paper is to analyse the various factors fuelling demand for Food- Away - From- Home (FAFH) in Ireland. The two largest components of this industry, the quick- service sector (fast food and takeaway) and the full- service sector (hotel and restaurant meals), are analysed using the...

This paper describes a methodology to assess the impact of the decoupling of payments on Irish farms at a regional level. The methodology is based on a farm level dynamic linear programming model which optimises regional gross margin under a set of constraints. Regionally representative farms...

This paper presents a theoretical model for the analysis of decisions regarding farm household labour allocation. The agricultural household model is selected as the most appropriate theoretical framework; a model based on the assumption that households behave to maximise utility, which is a...