Economics, NUI Galway: Research Projects

Ethos and history



ON-LINE AUTO-GRADED ASSIGNMENTS IN ECONOMICS: A TEST OF THEIR EFFECTIVENESS

Darragh Flannery Brendan Kennelly	There has been a great deal of interest in the use of computer-based automated assignment systems in economics. The most widely used of these applications is Aplia which was developed by Paul Romer in 2000 Aplia is a computer application designed to replace traditional tutorials and paper-based assignments in economics. Aplia appeals to educationalists who value the direct student interaction with the formative assessment plus immediate feedback on both summative and formative assessment. This project compares the effectiveness of Aplia and traditional paper-based assignments and tutorials using summative assessment results. Given the absence of systematic evidence on the effectiveness of Aplia and other on-line automatically graded assessment methods, we believe this project will be an important contribution to the economics and education literature. The project has been funded by the National Academy for Integration of Research & Teaching & Learning at UCC.



A randomised control trial to measure the effects and costs of a dental caries prevention regime for young children attending primary care dental services - Northern Ireland Caries Prevention In Practice Trial (NIC-PIP trial)

Ciaran O'Neill	Dental caries is the commonest disease of childhood . It is preventable, but persists as a public health problem with little change in the prevalence in young children over the last 20 years. Recent research suggests that the preventive care currently provided by general dental practitioners in the UK is ineffective and inequitable and that dentists are ill-equipped in terms of their knowledge and how they present effective information to their patients to prevent caries. This trial will examine the cost-effectiveness of a regime of education and care aimed at preventing caries. If the interventions tested in this trial are effective at preventing caries and reducing costs it will change how dentistry is provided for young children both in UK and internationally. If the interventions are shown not to be an efficient use of resources this will also influence policy and commissioning. The study has been awarded funding of £1.7 million over five years by the UK’s NIHR Health Technology Assessment programme. Trial participants will be recruited solely within Northern Ireland. The multi-disciplinary study team is led by Professor Martin Tickle from the University of Manchester and involves collaboration between consultants in public dental health, clinical trialists from the Clinical Research Support Centre in Belfast and statisticians from the University of Manchester. Professor Ciaran O’Neill from the University of Galway and Professor Matt Sutton of the University of Manchester together provide the health economics input into the study.



ICSG (IRISH CENTRE FOR SOCIAL GERENTOLOGY)

Eamon O'Shea	ICSG and the School of Nursing and Midwifery have been commissioned by the Health Research Board to develop a structured staff dementia education programme, incorporating reminiscence, for nursing and care staff in long-stay care facilities. Called the DARES study, this three-year study involves: • Developing a structured staff education programme on dementia, incorporating reminiscence • Delivering the education programme to nursing and care staff in long-stay care facilities • Supporting staff over a period of time in the use of reminiscence to develop a person-centred care plan for residents with dementia • Measuring the impact of this staff education programme on the quality of life and the levels of agitated behaviours of residents with dementia and on staff attitude to residents with dementia The proposed study uses a mixed method design, including a cluster randomised controlled trial. The primary outcome is quality of life while secondary measures include agitation levels, psychotropic medication use and staff attitude towards residents with dementia and the perceived care burden. Long-stay care facilities along the Western seaboard will be invited to participate and the education programme will be delivered in regional centres.



MAKING THE COMMONS WORK: CONSERVATION AND COOPERATION IN IRELAND.

Eithne Murphy Thomas Van Rensburg	Governments have intervened heavily in agriculture and resource markets. These policies are a result of pressures from public and other stakeholders which have the potential of suffering from collective action problems. Issues in agricultural and resource policy encompass questions of farm production, resource use, uncertainty, organizational behavior, political economy, policy design, market behavior, and the effect of agricultural production on the environment. One example of such a project includes commonages in Connemara. Overgrazing in Connemara is complicated by the fact that most upland grazing is held as common property by communities created by the post 1890 Irish Land Commission reforms. This feature makes setting up agri-environment contracts for environmental payment programs especially challenging, as it raises questions of local governance and collective action. We are addressing these problems in a joint program with the Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Food (DAFF) and Teagasc. We undertook a large survey of 280 farms that allow for the analysis of upland commonages in Connemara. Results from this research indicate that agri-environment schemes support cooperative efforts by farmers to conserve their land but direct price support does not. Study findings have been published in Land economics and Land Use Policy.



SEMRU (SOCIO-ECONOMIC RESEARCH FOR THE IRISH MARINE SECTOR)

Michael Cuddy Stephen Hynes Karyn Morrissey Cathal O'Donoghue Thomas Van Rensburg	This large scale project is funded by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, through the Beaufort Award and consists of five main strands: The impact of regulation on the development of the marine industry in Ireland; an economic evaluation of marine based energy sources; competitiveness and innovation in the marine food sector in Ireland; the economic and social impact of the marine sector on the broader economy in Ireland and measuring the non-market benefits of recreational marine eco-system services in Ireland. Those marine sub-sectors where particular regulations curtail their development will be identified and further research will be carried out in order to identify policy measures, which can mitigate those negative impacts. The principal focus, however, will the impact of the Common Fisheries on the fishing industry in Ireland, in particular its impact on coastal communities and their sustainability. The competitiveness of the Irish marine food industry will be examined and its limited success in innovation as evidenced by various reports pinpointing poor development of value-added product, packaging and marketing will be explored. This research will also provide a social and demographic profile of coastal communities, estimate the down-stream impact of the marine sector on other sector’s in the Irish economy and the impact of marine sector on the local economy and employment. The final component of the project will examine the economic incentives, regulatory framework and policies that are necessary for the development of the non-market benefits associated with Irish marine coastal resources.

	Read more about SEMRU


THE NUI GALWAY VIRTUAL STOCK MARKET

Srinivas Raghavendra	The main objective of our research is to understand the generating processes that underlie the stylized facts of the real world financial markets. WE approach this problem from an experimental economics point of view as we believe that experiments with human agents might provide us with some insights or testable hypotheses to further our understanding of the dynamics of financial markets. We follow a long tradition and drew inspiration from some of the pioneers in experimental economics to create an environment that would allow us to conduct repeated experiments in this field. As a first step our our research program, we have create a virtual stock market where human agents can participate and trade. The details and the working of the virtual stock market are discussed at Virtual Stock Market Virtual Stock Market



U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

Ashley Piggins	In the United States, the President is elected by a majority of votes in the Electoral College and not directly by the citizens. Each citizen votes in his/her state and each state has a certain number of electors in the Electoral College. Typically, each state awards all its electors to the candidate who has won a majority of votes in the state. Given that the number of electors in the Electoral College is fixed, how should electors be apportioned to different states when these states have populations that differ in size? By default, each state has two electors (reflecting its number of Senators) and at least one additional elector by virtue of its population. The central problem is that a state’s natural allocation of electors (reflecting its share of the population) is rarely a integer value. How are these fractions to be rounded, and subsequently added-up, so that the apportionment of electors equals the total number of electors to be apportioned? Although the differences between these rounding methods appear small, their impact can be substantial. For instance, as we demonstrate, had the Jefferson method been applied in the 2000 election then Al Gore would have beaten George W. Bush. This project takes data from every U.S. presidential election and asks whether the outcome would have been different had an alternative method of apportionment been used. We also consider the robustness of the outcomes to variations in the number of electors (a parameter that is essentially arbitrary). For instance, even without changing the method of apportionment in 2000, Gore would have beaten Bush had the number of electors simply been larger. One conclusion is that the outcomes of elections are often arbitrary, and do not depend on the underlying votes. This research is joint with Mathieu Martin and Fabrice Barthelemy of the Universite de Cergy-Pontoise.



USING MARINE PROTECTED AREAS TO PROTECT IRISH COLD WATER CORALS

Naomi Foley Thomas Van Rensburg	This study evaluates ecosystem goods and services provided by cold water coral ecosystems in the north-east Atlantic. Overfishing and degradation of cold water coral ecosystems are in part due to the fact that the environmental services provided by cold water coral reefs go un-rewarded, understating the private value of these marine ecosystems. Environmental services include the delivery of preferred and essential fish habitat, carbon capture helping reduce climate change, pharmaceutical products, and preservation of biodiversity. We use non-market valuation techniques that quantify functional values associated with these unique ecosystems. We have employed the production function approach to develop the theory and methods for pricing ecosystem functions and resilience linked to preferred and essential fish habitat. This approach treats coral habitat as a natural capital stock variable (which provide an input to the fishery) along with the other physical, natural and human capital forms. This project is funded by an EU framework six (Protect) and framework 7 (Hermione) and study findings have been published in Marine Policy.



VALUING ENVIRONMENTAL PUBLIC GOODS IN MANAGED LANDSCAPES

Edel Doherty Stephen Hynes Thomas Van Rensburg	This project involves the use of valuation techniques in which we undertake experiments offering participants choices which entail cost and benefit trade-offs. Such experiments include investigations of how different groups view and take decisions about the environment. One such topic concerned the different ways in which people make decisions about access to the countryside. This project involved both members of the public as well as farmers. We find that enhancing public access is cost effective in many rural areas and could contribute to income generation in the Irish countryside. A similar set of experiments in Irish and UK forests looked at the choices people made when asked to make decisions as private consumers where only they could benefit, as opposed to decisions made as citizens, from a social perspective in which others could also benefit. This project is funded by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and study findings have been published in Ecological Economics, Land use Policy and Journal of Environmental Planning and Management.

	Home >>Research >> Research Projects