The economics research industry

Foreword and backyard
First, the finely focused foreword by the Director General of IFPRI Joachim von Braun. He seems to lament over the alleged apathetic attitudes of sponsors in funding economics research, despite its profoundly positive impact on the lives of people and on improving the policy making process and policy decisions. Funding agencies, reportedly, are unwilling to fund economics research, probably propelled by the notion that outputs are not tangible like other research, or even if tangible, they are not worth the pounds in the wallet. But not long ago, economics research received funds at an enviable rate. Thus, surprisingly, nowadays economics research has been pushed backyard.

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"But we, as economists, believe strongly that economics research is worth a great deal is regrettably viewed by research funders and administrators as a less-than-compelling justification for future economics research funding. Public and private sources of research funds exhibit similar skepticism about the claims of many other science, social science, and technology disciplines on their purse. However, many of those professions have appealed to a third-party arbitrator -- the economics profession -- to demonstrate what their research is worth. Economists are less fortunate. We have to appeal to ourselves."

But, admits Joachim, economists sometimes, like the medical science profession, produce flawed research or communicate misleading solutions. Thus, the value of economics research could turn out to be negative "especially when paradigms are fixed, research is ideology driven, or the market for research quality or policy is malfunctioning."

Size and composition
One of the articles in the book, "The Economics Research Industry" by Vincent H. Smith and others invokes interesting insights into the growth, composition, and distribution of the industry over a period of 100 years or so.

Drawing upon time series and cross section data spanning over 100 years, the authors arrived at some substantive evidence on the growth, composition, and utility of the industry called economics research.

The authors opine that for what economics research is actually worth, there is compelling evidence that over the past 120 years the size of economics profession and the amount of economics research done tremendously increased. The base has been broadened with economics branches bearing upon health, education, and social security. Even law and economics and economics of family booked a berth in the train that traveled long as a social science. And new faces have been added to the old guards of economics e.g. growth, macroeconomic stabilisation, etc.

Men and money bias
Economists are generally found to speak against gender disparity both at household and national level. But the profession itself has gender bias. It is generally a more male dominated science compared to other social sciences. For example in 1998, 47-48 percent of the graduates in political science or engineering and pure sciences were females. As against this, one-thirds of the economics graduates were females. Although the proportions of women tend to decline with the advancement of the degrees, the decline seemingly sounds more "disgraceful" for economics than for other subjects.

On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of professional economics associations are located in developed countries and 16 per cent in developing and transition economies. The wealthy nations seem to be wealthier in the disposition of professional inputs in developed countries. "This supports the view that, as is the case for many knowledge generation and transfer industries, population in poor countries is much more inadequately served by economists than are population in rich countries."

Outputs and outlets
The economics research industry continues to produce a wide range of outputs -- ranging from specific products derived from applied research to new information and insights that flow into the decision making process of households, firms, and governments. Paul Krugman submits historical contributions of economics to our understanding of the economy and economic policy. Major contributions such as David Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage and the effects of monetary and fiscal policies on economic stabilisation and growth have had substantial impact on policy choices and the organisation of the society.

Serving society
A major conclusion of the book is that economics research has served all sections of the society through identifying the constraints and providing solutions. Especially, it has substantially contributed to the well being of the ordinary people in almost all countries. The fabric of public and private decision processes have been affected to enable enhanced ability to utilise resources efficiently. "Those benefits, which can clearly be substantial, can only occur if effective economic policy practioners are in the right place at the right time to provide the right message." Thus, it is not surprising that in both developed and developing countries, departments in public and private organisations are growingly embracing economics as a discipline to deliver their dividends from decision-making.

Economists, not priests
The authors observe that during 1993-1997, the proportion of economists employed in education and government had declined while the proportion employed in business and industry increased incessantly. The shifts had to do with demand and incentives. Just like other sectors of the economy, economists involved in economics and agricultural economics research industries do respond to incentives. "Moreover," in the words of Pardey and Smith, "Given that barriers to entry into the profession are not insuperable, they are no less at the mercy of Marshallian forces of supply and demand than professors of English or sanitary workforce. By the same token, however, that relatively large quantity of economists are employed at positive market prices provides at least same prima facia evidence that their output has value to someone."

Abdul Bayes is a Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University.