Spatial Microsimulation for Rural Policy Analysis

1 Introduction.- 2 The Spatial Policy Context of Economic, Agricultural and Environmental Change in Rural Ireland.- 3 A Review of Microsimulation for Policy Analysis.- 4 The SMILE Model: Construction and Calibration.- 5 Validation Issues and the Spatial Pattern of Household Income.- 6 Farm Level Spatial Microsimulation Modelling.- 7 Conservation and Rural Environmental Protection Scheme.- 8 Modelling Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Agriculture.- 9 The Location Economics of Biomass Production for Electricity Generation.- 10 Modelling Farm Viability.- 11 The Spatial Distribution of Household Disposable Income.- 12 Spatial Access to Health Services.- 13 Modelling the Spatial Pattern of Rural Tourism and Recreation.- 14 Conclusions and Next Steps.

Cathal O'Donoghue is Head of the Rural Economy Research Centre. He has studied at UCC, UCD, Oxford and the London School of Economics, taking degrees in Mathematics, Statistics, Economics and Social Policy. Prior to joining RERC Cathal spent a number of years at the Department of Economics at NUI Galway, Ireland. His research is mainly in the area of applied public economics, focusing on the impact of household sector, tax and social policy on poverty, inequality, work incentives and environmental pollution. In addition, this work has extended into labour economics, economic demography and environmental economics.

Dimitris Ballas is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography at the University of Sheffield and Deputy Director of the University of Sheffield research Centre for Health and Well-being in Public Policy (CWiPP). He is an economist by training (1996, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece) and also has a Master of Arts (with distinction) in Geographical Information Systems (1997, University of Leeds, UK) and a PhD in Geography (2001, University of Leeds, UK). He has extensive experience and expertise in the use of Geonformatics and GIS in the Social Sciences. His current research interests include economic geography, social and spatial inequalities, social justice, exploring geographies of happiness and well-being and socio-economic applications of GIS. He is the lead author of the book Geography matters: simulating the impacts of national social policies and a co-author of the books Post-Suburban Europe: Planning and Politics at the Margins of Europe's Capital Cities and Poverty, wealth and place in Britain, 1968 to 2005. He has also published his research widely in peer-reviewed international academic journals, peer-reviewed edited book chapters and conference papers.

Graham Clarke is Professor of Business Geography at the School of Geography, University of Leeds. He has workedextensively in