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...

Compared to studies evaluating the benefits from agricultural research, there are relatively few empirical studies of the net economic benefits of agricultural extension, and even fewer that consider both public and private sector extension effort. In this study we examine regional differences...

Conjoint measurement was used to determine consumer preference for fresh pork produced with genetically engineered porcine somatotropin (pST). A preference model was constructed based on three pork attributes, degree of fat reduction, price, and production technology, which allowed for...

In this study, elicited estimates of farmers' subjective beliefs about the mean and variance of wheat variety yields were used to test propositions about Bayesian learning developed in the recent literature on innovation adoption. A series of empirical tests of the Bayesian adoption model were...

Growth in agriculture depends on many things but one of the most important is investment in agricultural research. Decision making in the agricultural research policy area can only be aided by access to better information. This article overviews a recent endeavor to move policy dialogue beyond...

Executive Summary: HarvestChoice provides data, information and tools to support strategic investment decisions in agriculture. Most agricultural processes are strongly influenced by biotic stressors, such as insects and pathogens. However, available pest information has been lacking, for...

This abstract describes alternative output aggregates that provide both cross-sectional and temporal comparisons appropriate for the analysis of panel data sets. Several of these multidimensional output indices are constructed using detailed data on agricultural production to illustrate the...