My research work is broadly in the field of applied microeconometrics with a particular focus on health and well-being, farmers’ decision-making, environmental and natural resource economics and urban and regional planning.

Much of my recent research has been aimed at better understanding the determinants of general life satisfaction and health. My most recent published papers in this area examined the causal effect of indicators of social capital on self-reported quality of life and psychological health. My current research in this field is aimed at taking advantage of recent developments in the availability of large scale panel household and environmental datasets and using advanced large-data-set analysis techniques to quantify the effect of a variety of indicators of environmental quality (e.g. clean air, contact with nature, geohazards) on population health and well-being.

My work in agriculture has sought to provide a rationale for the prevalence of inefficient farm practices such as relatively low rates of uptake of efficiency-enhancing technologies. This work has centred on determining the relevance of non-pecuniary benefits, productivist attitudes and risk aversion as an explanation for seemingly economically ‘irrational’ behaviour on the part of farm operators. I have also a strong background in applied environmental economics research. Specifically, I have applied a variety of non-market valuation methods to value changes in the provision of environmental goods and services. Finally, following on from my PhD related research, I maintain an active research interest in issues related to urban renewal and residential mobility across the life-cycle.