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New Publications
Books and Monographs
Should Governments Subsidize Tuition At Public Universities?: Amy Damon and Paul Glewwe In 2005, the state of Minnesota provided $1.29 billion for operating expenses at higher education institutions in Minnesota. The University of Minnesota received $591 million, while the seven state universities operated by the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) system received about $241 million (most of the remaining $460 million was allocated to community and technical colleges operated by MnSCU). These subsidies clearly benefit the students who enroll in these universities, but what benefits are received by Minnesota taxpayers who never attend a public university in their state? In this report we address this question by estimating the private and public benefits that accrue to Minnesotans from the additional education activities (but not the research activities) of these institutions that are generated by State Government subsidies to higher education. view abstract | view PDF | web link |
Science, Technology and Skills Pardey, Philip G., Julian Alston, Jenni James, Paul Glewwe, Eran Binenbaum, Terry Hurley, and Stanley Wood Prepared as a background paper for the "World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development," of which the full report and all associated background papers are available at the links below. view abstract | view paper | view full report | web link |
Long Gone Lake Wobegon?: The State of Investments in University of Minnesota Research Philip G. Pardey, Steven Dehmer, and Jason Beddow Getting a handle on the changing amount and structure of R&D expenditures by the University of Minnesota is a crucial and informative first step in any cost-benefit assessment of the University's impact and is the primary focus of this report. Following the executive summary, the second in this series of four briefs places academic research done at the University of Minnesota in the context of the other activities of the University and identifies shifts in the sources of support and the composition of the research. Companion briefs put changes in academic research spending in Minnesota and at the University of Minnesota in a state-by-state and comparative institutional setting. The evidence reveals a significant structural slowdown in the growth of spending in academic R&D in Minnesota, beginning in the early 1990s. Moreover, the amount and intensity of spending on academic R&D in the State of Minnesota is no longer "above average," and the University of Minnesota has lost considerable ground on a range of research spending metrics and is now lagging behind many of its peer groups of universities in other states. view abstract | view PDF | web link | Additional information on the impact of the University of Minnesota can be obtained from the recently released Alumni Survey available at http://www1.umn.edu/urelate/survey/.
Regulating Agricultural Biotechnology Economics and Policy Just, R.E., J.M. Alston, and D. Zilberman (eds) This book presents the first thorough economic analysis of current agricultural biotechnology regulation. The contributors, most of whom are agricultural economists working either in universities or NGOs, address issues such as commercial pesticides, the costs of approving new products, liability, benefits, consumer acceptance, regulation and its impacts, transgenic crops, social welfare implications, and biosafety.
Contributors view abstract | view PDF | web link
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Agricultural R&D in the Developing World: Too Little, Too Late? Philip G. Pardey, Julian M. Alston, and Roley R. Piggott (eds) Washington D.C.: International Food Policy Research Institute, 2006 This book was conceived as a companion to the 1999 volume, Paying for Agigultural Productivity, published by Johns Hopkins University Press in conjunction with IFPRI. That volume dealt with investments, institutions and policy processes regarding agricultural R&D in developed countries. This book addresses that same set of issues for the developing countries, and their relationship to the richer parts of the world where the preponderance of agricultural innovation still takes place. The book combines new evidence with economic theory and an economic way of thinking about science policy—highlighting the developing country aspects—as well as a set of in-depth, comparative country studies. These country studies take us well beyond generalities, providing insights into the important and potentially profound changes taking place within these countries and others they represent. The countries covered include the largest developing countries—China and India—as well as a range of richer and poorer and more- and less-developed countries, representing most parts of the globe. The information assembled here and the lessons learned in this volume argue
for refocusing attention on agricultural R&D as an instrument for long-run
economic development; as something that can help avert a continuation of the chronic
hunger and malnutrition that afflicts all too many people around the world. These
lessons can be made to pay off if they help revitalize multinational engagement
and investment in the global public goods of international agricultural research.
Contributors view abstract | view PDF | web link |
Agricultural Research: A Growing Global Divide? Philip G. Pardey, Nienke Beintema, Steven Dehmer, and Stanley Wood IFPRI, Food Policy Report No. 17, August 2006 Sustained, well-targeted, and effectively used investments in R&D have reaped handsome rewards from improved agricultural productivity and cheaper, higher quality foods and fibers. As we begin a new millennium, the global patterns of investments in agricultural R&D are changing in ways that may have profound consequences for the structure of agriculture worldwide and the ability of poor people in poor counties to feed themselves. This report documents and discusses these changing investment patterns, highlighting developments in the public and private sectors. It revises and carries forward to 2000 data that were previously reported in the 2001 IFPRI Food Policy Report Slow Magic: Agricultural R&D a Century After Mendel. Some past trends are continuing or have come into sharper focus, while others are moving in new directions not apparent in the previous series. In addition, this report illustrates the use of spatial data to analyze spillover prospects among countries or agroecologies and the targeting of R&D to address specific production problems like drought-induced production risks. More detailed data on the agricultural research investment trends summarized here can be accessed at www.asti.cgiar.org. view abstract | view PDF | web link |
Is War Necessary for Economic Growth? Military Procurement and Technology Development Vernon W. Ruttan New York: Oxford University Press, 2006 Military and defense-related procurement has been an important source of technology development across a broad spectrum of industries that account for an important share of United States industrial production. In this book, the author focuses on six general-purpose technologies: interchangeable parts and mass production; military and commercial aircraft; nuclear energy and electric power; computers and semiconductors; the INTERNET; and the space industries. In each of these industries, technology development would have occurred more slowly, and in some case much more slowly or not at all, in the absence of military and defense-related procurement. The book addresses three questions that have significant implications for the future growth of the United States economy. One is whether changes in the structure of the United States economy and of the defense-industrial base preclude military and defense-related procurement from playing the role in the development of advanced technology in the future, comparable to the role it has played in the past. A second question is whether public support for commercially oriented research and development will become an important source of new general-purpose technologies. A third and more disturbing question is whether a major war, or the threat of major war, will be necessary to mobilize the scientific, technical, and financial resources necessary to induce the development of new general-purpose technologies. When the history of United States technology development in the next half century is written, it will focus on incremental rather than revolutionary changes in both military and commercial technology. It will also be written within the context of slower productivity growth than of the relatively high rates that prevailed in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s or during the information technology bubble that began in the early 1990s. These will impose severe constraints on the capacity of the United States to sustain a global-class military posture and a position of leadership in the global economy. view abstract | view PDF | web link | Articles, etc.
Alston, J.M., and P.G. Pardey view abstract | view PDF | web link |
Andersen M.A., J.M. Alston, and P.G. Pardey view abstract | view PDF | web link |
Pardey, P.G., J.M. Alston, C. Chan-Kang, E. Magalhães, and S. Vosti view abstract | view PDF | web link |
Wright, B.D. and P.G. Pardey view abstract | view PDF | web link |
Wright, B.D. and P.G. Pardey view abstract | view PDF | web link |
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