Measuring the Benefits of Policy-Oriented Economic Research, an important but largely unaddressed issue in the public policy arena, was the topic of an Agricultural Issues Center sponsored symposium from 3 to 5 p.m. on Wednesday, April 2, at UC Davis.
John W. Freebairn, head of the Department of Economics, University of Melbourne, and David Zilberman, chair of the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Policy, and the director of the Center on Sustainable Resource Development at UC Berkeley presented papers. Center director Daniel A. Sumner opened the general discussion with prepared remarks that related the insights of Freebairn and Zilberman to the work of the Agricultural Issues Center.
Freebairn's and Zilberman's papers on measuring the benefits of social science research were commissioned by the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, D.C. and were also presented at an international workshop in Washington.