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A New Mean Standard Deviation Utility Function and the Behaviour Towards Risk of Specialist Irish Agricultural Producers: 1988-1997

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  • Boyle, Gerry

    (National University of Ireland Maynooth)

  • Conniffe, Denis

    (National University of Ireland Maynooth)

  • McQuinn, Kieran

    (Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland)

Abstract

This paper employs a new mean-standard deviation utility (MSU) function with more general properties than traditionally employed function in the agricultural economics literature to explore the risk preferences of Irish barley producers between 1988 and 1997. During this period EU cereal producers were subject to major policy reforms (MacSharry Reforms) that may have influenced the nature of producers' risk attitudes. Our findings support the proposed function in preference to the Linear Mean Variance (LMV) function. We find that Irish cereal producers are highly risk averse but their degree of risk aversion falls appreciably in the period before and following the MacSharry Reforms. We also find that the majority of Irish producers exhibit increasing absolute risk aversion (IARA) but the proportion displaying DARA increases substantially following the 1992 Reforms. The policy implications of our results are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Boyle, Gerry & Conniffe, Denis & McQuinn, Kieran, 2005. "A New Mean Standard Deviation Utility Function and the Behaviour Towards Risk of Specialist Irish Agricultural Producers: 1988-1997," Research Technical Papers 5/RT/05, Central Bank of Ireland.
    • Handle: RePEc:cbi:wpaper:5/rt/05
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Edward Knapp & Jason Loughrey, 2017. "The single farm payment and income risk in Irish farms 2005–2013," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-15, December.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

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