Science Under Scarcity: Principles and Practice for Agricultural Research and Priority Setting (Cabi) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0851992994 ISBN 13: 9780851992990

Publisher: CABI, 1998

Synopsis

Resources for agricultural science are scarce across the world. Yet even as resources are shrinking, agricultural science has expanded its inquiry into many new areas - such as environmental preservation, food quality, and rural development - without forsaking its more traditional concerns. In a time of tight government budgets, research administrators are faced with the need to provide strong evidence that costs are justified by benefits. Science under Scarcity is an invaluable guide to the theory and methods necessary for evaluating research in agriculture and for setting priorities for resource allocation. Although economists have made significant progress in developing more sophisticated methods for research evaluation and priority setting, many research analysts and administrators do not have a working knowledge of those practices. Without the assistance of formal economic analysis it is particularly difficult to assess the social value of new technologies or to make informed judgements about the trade-offs that are involved in allocation decisions. Addressing that knowledge gap, this book reviews, synthesizes, and extends such methods as economic surplus analysis, econometric techniques, mathematical programming procedures, and scoring models. It discusses these practices in the context of scientific policy, describes their conceptual foundations, and explains how to do them.

Originally published in 1995 in hardcover by Cornell University Press, it is now reissued in paperback by CAB INTERNATIONAL.

About this title

About the Author:

Julian M. Alston, Professor, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Davis. George W. Norton, Professor of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Philip G. Pardey, Research Fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute, and Associate Professor, Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota.

Review:

"Not scarcity of food, but of funding for research has inspired Alston (agricultural and resource economics, U. of California-Davis), George W. Norton (agricultural and applied economics, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State U.) and Philip G. Pardey (applied economics, U. of Minnesota) to explain to research analysts and administrators some economic methods for evaluating and prioritizing research. They apply to agricultural research such tools as economic surplus analysis, economic techniques, mathematical programming procedures, and scoring models."--SciTech Book News

About this edition

• Publisher: CABI
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0851992994
• ISBN 13: 9780851992990
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 624
• Editor: Alston Julian M.