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The coronavirus is severely disrupting labour markets. Businesses that rely on face-to-face communication or close physical proximity between co-workers and with customers are particularly vulnerable. While interventions such as occupational social distancing and remote working have become widespread responses to the pandemic, we know very little about which workers will be affected the most by these interventions. Does our age, gender, marital status, educational attainment, occupation, or location affect our ability to practice occupational socially distancing, or our ability to work remotely? Social distancing and remote working potential indices are constructed, by occupation, using O*Net data, and this is matched to individual level data on over 150,000 individuals in employment from the Irish Census 2011. This allows us to identify, at the individual level, worker characteristics which can explain the degree to which a given individual working in a certain occupation may be able to effectively socially distance in their workplace or engage in remote work. Our results indicate that Covid-19 restrictions are unequal across workers. Notably younger, male, less educated, non-nationals, the self-employed and those located outside the capital will find it more difficult to work remotely and more difficult to practice socially distancing in the workplace.

In this paper we analyse the impact of economic development and urbanisation on CO2 emissions in Ireland over the period 1970 to 2011. Using a vector error correction model and impulse response functions we pose two questions. Firstly, what role has economic development and urbanisation played in driving CO2 emissions in Ireland. Secondly, what impact might government regulations and directives which cut CO2 emissions have on future economic growth and urbanisation in Ireland. We use data from the World Bank and Penn World Tables to answer these questions. Our findings suggest that in the short run economic growth leads to higher levels of CO2 emissions but that in the long run economic growth lowers emissions. Regarding urbanisation, increasing urbanisation in Ireland has contributed to lower levels of CO2 emissions than might otherwise be observed. Our model suggests that cuts to CO2 emissions will have no impact on urbanisation but will have a negative impact on GDP.

This paper utilises censored quantile regression techniques to analyse the impact of various forms of innovation inputs on the innovation output of a sample of Irish firms, using data from the Irish Community Innovation Survey 2008- 2010. While there is a substantial literature on the drivers of innovation, there is a new and growing research interest in the application of quantile regression in the context of innovation. The advantage of quantile regression is that it moves beyond the typical assumption of variation around a mean, and allows for insights into the changing effectiveness of innovation inputs across the full innovation distribution. However, most papers treat innovation output as a continuous variable, when in fact it is more accurate to treat this variable as censored. Therefore, this paper applies a censored quantile regression estimator to evaluate the impact of innovation inputs on innovation output and to assess whether the effectiveness of these inputs varies, depending on how innovative a firm is. The key results of the paper are that both intramural and extramural R&D decline in effectiveness as firms become more innovative. We also find evidence that external networking is more important for less innovative firms.

Today, firms are faced with a number of environmental challenges, such as global warming, pollution control and declining natural resources. While there is increasing pressure to deliver environmentally friendly products and services, little is known about what drives the many different types of environmental innovation, or how such pursuits' impact firm performance. Using a sample of 2181 firms, this paper examines the factors that drive nine different types of eco‐innovation in Ireland, and assesses how such innovations impact firm performance. We find that, while demand‐side, supply‐side and regulatory drivers impact on the likelihood of a firm engaging in eco‐innovation, the relative magnitudes of these impacts vary across the types of eco‐innovation considered. Moreover, we find that only two of the nine types of eco‐innovation positively impact firm performance. The results point to regulation and customer pressure as viable mechanisms through which firms can be encouraged to eco‐innovate.

Atmospheric CO2 is expected to increase to between 550 ppm and 1000 ppm in the next century. CO2-induced changes in plant physiology can have ecosystem-wide implications and may alter plant-plant, plant-herbivore and plant-symbiont interactions. We examined the effects of three concentrations of CO2 (390ppm, 800ppm and 1000ppm) and two concentrations of nitrogen fertilizer (0.004gN/week vs. 0.2gN/week) on the physiological response of Neotyphodium fungal endophyte-infected and uninfected tall fescue plants. We used quantitative PCR to estimate the concentration of endophyte under altered CO2 and N conditions. We found that elevated CO2 increased the concentration of water-soluble carbohydrates and decreased the concentration of plant total amino acids in plants. Fungal-derived alkaloids decreased in response to elevated CO2 and increased in response to nitrogen fertilization. Endophyte concentration (expressed as the number of copies of an endophyte-specific gene per total genomic DNA) increased under elevated CO2 and nitrogen fertilization. The correlation between endophyte concentration and alkaloid production observed at ambient conditions was not observed under elevated CO2. These results suggest that nutrient exchange dynamics important for maintaining the symbiotic relationship between fungal endophytes and their grass hosts may be altered by changes in environmental variables such as CO2 and nitrogen fertilization. GR was supported by a fellowship from the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Canada. Funding to support this research was provided by grants from NSERC and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, to JN.

Rising atmospheric CO2 is expected to increase primary productivity resulting in changes in bottom-up ecosystem interactions. CO2-induced increases in photosynthesis are expected to change plant growth, morphology and metabolism. Such changes will alter the nutritional quality of plants for insect herbivores, particularly those involving resource allocation. While plant mechanisms underlying foliage feeder response to CO2 have been well documented, much less is known about the responses of insects feeding on a phloem diet. In this work I examined the current literature on responses to elevated CO2 using a quantitative meta-analysis of changes in insect life history traits and plant growth, nutrient allocation, morphology and metabolite responses. Insect response to rising CO2 was dependent on feeding guild, with foliage feeder performance decreasing, while phloem feeder response increased. Changes in plant parameters were found to occur under elevated CO2 and were dependent on plant functional group and interacting environmental variables. Plant-mediated Rhopalosiphum padi aphid responses to CO2 were measured on tall fescue and barley. Aphid abundance and density decreased on tall fescue and increased on barley plants in response to elevated CO2. The relative concentration of some essential amino acids decreased under elevated CO2 in tall fescue while most essential amino acids increased in barley, along with an increase in the total concentration of amino acids and the ratio of essential to non-essential amino acids. In tall fescue, aphid response was dependent on plant nitrogen and Neotyphodium endophyte status. Elevated CO2 was found to alter endophyte and alkaloid concentrations which may have implications for the grass-endophyte mutualism. On endophyte-infected grasses, CO2-induced decreases in alkaloids had no effect on aphids which were unsuccessful at colonizing endophyte-infected plants. The possible causal agents of CO2-induced changes in aphid performance are discussed with an emphasis on amino acids. Future studies which may further elucidate these underlying mechanisms are addressed. Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada

We conducted the most extensive meta-analysis of plant and animal responses to elevated CO2 to date. We analysed > 5000 data points extracted from 270 papers published between 1979 and 2009. We examined the changes in 19 animal response variables to the main effect of elevated CO2. We found strong evidence for significant variation among arthropod orders and feeding guilds, including interactions in the direction of response. We also examined the main effects of elevated CO2 on: six plant growth and allocation responses, seven primary metabolite responses, eight secondary metabolite responses, and four physical defence responses. We examined these response variable changes under two-way and three-way interactions between CO2 and: soil nitrogen, ambient temperature, drought, light availability, photosynthetic pathway, reproductive system, plant growth rate, plant growth form, tissue type, and nitrogen fixation. In general we found smaller effect sizes for many response variables than have been previously reported. We also found that many of the oft-reported main effects of CO2 obscure the presence of significant two- and three-way interactions, which may help better explain the relationships between the response variables and elevated CO2. OMAFRA and NSERC

1. Cool-season grasses can be simultaneously infected by foliar fungal endophytes and colonised by mycorrhizal fungi, the integrated functions of which are strong predictors of plant fitness within grassland ecosystems. Evidence has been presented previously that infection of grass species with foliar endophytes can negatively affect mycorrhizal colonisation. Here, we tested the hypothesis that mycorrhizal colonisation in turn adversely affects Neotyphodium endophyte concentrations and that the competitive interaction between the two endosymbionts is affected by resource supply. 2. Specifically, we report how competition between Glomus (G. mosseae– GM, G. intraradices– GI) mycorrhizal fungi and N. lolii (common strain (CS) and AR1) foliar endophytic strains is affected by P supply and water-soluble carbohydrate (WSC) content in two Lolium perenne (perennial ryegrass) cultivars: a high sugar grass, berDart, and a conventional (control) grass, Fennema. 3. The presence of Glomus mycorrhizae reduced the concentrations of endophytes and alkaloids in leaf blades and pseudostems. The reduction depended on P supply, ryegrass cultivar (notably WSC content) and endophyte strain. Conversely, foliar endophyte infection reduced mycorrhizal colonisation rates and concentrations in the roots of the control cultivar Fennema, although not in the high sugar cultivar, AberDart. 4. Neither GM nor N. lolii infection had an effect per se on the yield of root or blade compared with mycorrhiza-free (M-) and endophyte-free (E-) plants, respectively; though, yield of roots and blades was reduced by GI infection and at low P. 5. Competitive interactions between ecologically widespread foliar endophytes (valuable for plant protection) and mycorrhizal endosymbionts (valuable for P acquisition) as seen in this study are of critical importance especially in areas of high pest prevalence and low P availability. Our work stresses the need for elucidating the physiological/metabolic basis for such interactions between endosymbionts to understand how these processes contribute to plant performance and fitness in grassland ecosystems.

Objectives: Business transfers are posing a particular problem for several European countries as the age distribution of business owners rises and as the number of firms transferred within families' declines. This paper explores firm, market, and regional differences in firms which are expected to be transferred in the British Isles against those that are expected to be disposed of. It also examines whether there are regional differences in the types of businesses which are expected to be transferred across the British Isles. Prior Work: Previous research in this area has primarily examined intergenerational succession in family businesses (Bennedsen et al. 2006), while the research into management-buyouts and trade-sales has focused on the entrepreneur's mode of entry (Parker and Van Praag, 2006). Martin et al. (2002) finds evidence that spatial differentiation exists in the vulnerability of firms to age related business transfer failure. In this paper we examine whether businesses located in relatively more economically vibrant regions within the British Isles, whether due to urban economies (Gordon and McCann 2005) or agglomeration economies (Parr 2002) or the level of entrepreneurial talent (Markley, 2006) in the region, have a lower probability of a business transfer failure. Approach: Interview evidence on the expected end-game strategy of entrepreneurs facing the risk of age related transfer failure was obtained from firms in a number of regions in the British Isles, namely the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England (800 cases). A model is developed which predicts how firm, market and regional characteristics influence whether a firm is expected to be transferred or not. Preliminary Results: Entrepreneurs who expect to dispose of the assets of the business on their retirement have a significantly lower probability of having a high level of entrepreneurial talent in the region and a higher probability of having a high level of GVA per head in the region than entrepreneurs who expect to transfer their businesses. A higher level of entrepreneurial talent (as measured by stock of businesses per resident) and a lower of GVA per head are more likely in rural regions.