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Economic Research Trade-Offs Between Efficiency and Equity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2015

Quentin M. West*
Affiliation:
U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service
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Extract

U.S. agricultural economic research has traditionally focused on farm production and marketing efficiency. In the future it must give more attention to equity.

Americans will certainly maintain their interest in producing things more efficiently. But, it is a healthy sign that they are also becoming more interested in making sure that changes are made fairly, justly, and impartially.

While there has been an increasing amount of agricultural economic research directed toward the problems of equity, there has not been enough. While I could present a paper documenting this research, I think it more useful at this point to consider seriously our overall research policy and try to reach some conclusion about whether it has adequately come to grips with the economic and social issues pressing upon us today.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Southern Agricultural Economics Association 1973

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References

1 Hightower, Jim, Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times - The Failure of me Land Grant College Complex, Agribusiness Accountability Project, Washington, D.C., 1972, p. 3Google Scholar.

2 Freddy K. Hines and Lynn M. Daft, The Econmic and Social Condition of Rural America in the 1970's: the Distribution of Federal Outlays Among U.S. Counties, prepared by ERS for the U.S. Senate Committee on Government Operations, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., Dec. 1971.

3 Further discussion of the Act is contained in an ERS paper by Lynn M. Daft: The Rural Development Act of 1972: What Is It? presented at the Conference on Manpower Planning for Jobs in Rural America, Sponsored by Michigan State University and the U.S. Department of Labor, Austin, Texas, Dec. 1972.