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Peter joined the Rural Economy
Development Programme in 2007 as a research officer
having completed his PhD at the school of Geography,
Planning and Environmental Policy at University College
Dublin. One characteristic feature of Peter’s research
activities is that it encompasses a diverse range of
projects utilising a wide variety of research methods.
Initially, Peter Initially was part of a partnership
working on an EU framework project (AGMEMOD) which
developed an econometric, dynamic, multi-product partial
equilibrium model of the EU agricultural sector. This
allowed project participants to make projections and
simulations in order to evaluate measures, programmes
and policies in agriculture at the European Union level
as well as at the individual Member State level. One
additional, core research activity in recent times has
been in the area of non-market valuation. This has
principally involved the use of stated preference
techniques to investigate the general publics’
preferences and willingness to pay for non-market public
goods associated with the agricultural sector. Apart
from investigating individuals’ preferences for various
public goods Peter also conducts research aimed at
improving stated preference methods (contingent
valuation and choice experiments) in environmental
valuation.
Peter is also heavily involved in a
wide variety of survey based research examining what
factors affect individuals’ attitudes towards rural
landscapes and conservation. Peter has also undertaken a
large amount of research exploring the role of human
values in explaining individuals’ attitudes and
behaviour in relation to a diverse range of
environmental issues. Finally Peter conducts a large
amount of research concerned with examining farmers’
behaviour. This includes through the development of
micro level time series econometric models predicting
farmers’ behaviour in response to policy changes such as
decoupling, factors affecting participation in farm
forestry and uptake of agricultural innovations and also
the role of non-pecuniary factors in explaining farmers’
activity levels.
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