Testing for speculation in agricultural land in Ireland

Agricultural land prices in many developed countries rose and then fell dramatically over a relatively short period in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Most of the models in the literature that describe the dynamic behaviour of agricultural land prices suggest that these sharp price movements were not completely due to market fundamentals. Many attribute part of this price volatility to speculation. This phenomenon is investigated by estimating a general regime-switching model that nests many types of speculative behaviour as special cases. We find strong evidence to support a partially collapsing bubbles model for Irish agricultural land prices.