Siobhan McCarthy

Publications (6)1.38 Total impact

• Source

  Available from: Carol Newman

  Article: Household Characteristics of Higher Education Participants

  Martin Ryan, Siobhan McCarthy, Carol Newman
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  ABSTRACT: The aim of this paper is to analyse the characteristics of Irish households that have a member participating in higher education, using surveys of Irish households collected in 1994-95 and 1999-2000. The results do not show a significant effect of income; this is notable, especially alongside the strong result that longer-term factors such as household wealth and cultural capital have a significant effect. This lends support to the argument proposed by Heckman (2000) that family income is only important over the entire educational investment cycle of a child. However, the importance of grant eligibility is a notable result, which suggests that short-term financial constraints cannot be dismissed. A combination of suitably beneficial short-term and long-term factors may be important for encouraging participation in higher education.
  08/2007;
• Source

  Available from: Carol Newman

  Article: THE DETERMINANTS OF CHARITABLE DONATIONS IN THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND

  James Carroll, Siobhan McCarthy, Carol Newman
  09/2005;
• Source

  Available from: Carol Newman

  Article: An Econometric Analysis of Charitable Donations in the Republic of Ireland

  Carol Newman, James Carroll, Siobhan McCarthy
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  ABSTRACT: This paper explores the variables that affect the probability of donating to charity and those that affect the size of donations by Irish households. The dataset employed is the Irish Household Budget Survey (HBS) 1999/2000, which is analysed using a tobit model and doublehurdle model with an inverse hyperbolic sine transformation of the dependent variable. To date, there has been no prior econometric analysis of charitable donations in the Republic of Ireland.
  The Economic and Social Review. 02/2005; 36:229-249.
• Source

  Available from: tcd.ie

  Article: Determinants of Private Afforestation in the Republic of Ireland

  Siobhan McCarthy, Alan Matthews, Brendan Riordan
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  ABSTRACT: This paper employs a panel regression analysis using county-level data to quantify the relative importance of competing forestry and agricultural policy incentives in explaining trends in private afforestation in Ireland. It concludes that an increase in the level of up front payments to planters is the most cost efficient way of increasing planting levels. The introduction of the Irish agri-environment programme REPS has contributed to a significant decline in the level of forestry planting and offset the recent increases in the level of forestry grants and premia. Several policy reforms to encourage forestry planting in Ireland are proposed, including greater integration of forestry with the REPS scheme and increasing the value of the initial payment which farmers receive.
  02/2002;
• Article: Functional aspects of mammalian sperm chromatin.

  Siobhan McCarthy, W. Steven Ward
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  ABSTRACT: During spermiogenesis, the histones in the round spermatid, which bind the DNA in a relatively open configuration leaving much of the DNA exposed, are replaced by the much more tightly binding protamines, which package the DNA into highly condensed toroids. This knowledge has led to models of sperm chromatin structure that characterize the DNA as highly condensed and biologically inert, a view that is substantiated by the lack of detectable mRNA transcription or DNA replication in mature sperm nuclei. However, this view of sperm chromatin structure has been challenged recently by new data from several laboratories, including our own. These data indicate that mammalian sperm nuclei can interact with exogenous DNA and undergo sperm-specific apoptosis. We propose a model for sperm chromatin structure that provides a mechanism by which the tightly compacted mammalian sperm chromatin may be capable of these activities.
  Human Fertility 02/1999; 2(1):56-60. · 1.38 Impact Factor
• Article: Disentangling altruistic and egoistic motivations for charitable giving

  Carol Newman, James Carroll, Siobhan McCarthy
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  ABSTRACT: In this paper the motivations underlying charitable giving are explored using an impure altruism model that allows for both altruistic and egoistic motivations. Our results suggest that there is only partial crowding out of private donations by public expenditure. This is due to two mechanisms: firstly, public soci al expenditure appears to act as a signal for the extent of need for charitable donations in the economy, so as public social expenditure increases, more people donate to charit y. However, conditional on donating, the level of public social expenditure will partial ly crowd-out private donations. Households are also egoistic and donate more when donation levels of other private households are high: that is, the greater the overa ll level of private donations in the economy, the greater an individual household's dona tion level will be.