TOWARD A FRAMEWORK FOR EVALUATING AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS RESEARCH

Agricultural economists need to evaluate their own research priorities. The main difficulty in doing so is to value the types of information generated by economic research. Bayesian decision theory provides a framework for valuing information, and the results of selected studies using this methodology are collated. Most of the other determinants of research priorities can be encapsulated in a target return ratio measure. How such a framework might be used is illustrated by three 'hypotheticals'.