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Some Guiding Principles for Empirical Production Research in Agriculture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2016

Richard E. Just
Richard E. Just*
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at The University of Maryland
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Abstract

Constraints on production economic research are examined in three dimensions: problem focus, methodology, and data availability. Data availability has played a large role in the choice of problem focus and explains some misdirected focus. A proprosal is made to address the data availability constraint. The greatest self-imposed constraints are methodological. Production economics has focused on flexible representations of technology at the expense of specificity in preferences. Yet some of the major problems faced by decision makers relate to long-term problems, e.g., the commodity boom and ensuing debt crisis of the 1970s and 1980s where standard short-term profit maximization models are unlikely to capture the essence of decision maker concerns.

Type
Invited Presentations
Information
Agricultural and Resource Economics Review , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , October 2000 , pp. 138 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association 

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