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Market Failures and Land Grant Universities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2015

Francis M. Epplin
Francis M. Epplin*
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural Economics, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma
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Abstract

One hundred and fifty years ago, the 1862 Morrill Land Grant Act was signedinto law. Wise people at that time recognized that the private market foreducation failed to produce an efficient level of education decades beforethe economic theory was developed to explain that market failures reduceefficiency. The purpose of this paper is to review the history of selectedevents that resulted in the development of publicly funded U.S. educationalinstitutions and to issue a challenge for our profession to do a better jobof educating about the theoretical justification for using tax dollars tosupport university education and agricultural research and the efficiencyenhancing consequences of that use.

Type
Lifetime Achievement Awards
Information
Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , August 2012 , pp. 281 - 289
Copyright
Copyright © Southern Agricultural Economics Association 2012

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