SOUTHERN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS JULY 1989 RELEVANCY OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES IN THE POLICY ARENA: IMPLICATIONS FOR AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS

For decades this society has underinvested complex and as yet poorly understood macro-in the social sciences relative to the biological economic impacts on agriculture and rural and physical sciences. In partial consequence, communities. We still need to understand the today the changing agenda of problems of the impacts of national deregulation of finance, society falls increasingly into the domain of banking, energy, and transportation on the social sciences. Ironically the cumulative agriculture and rural communities and their effect of this underinvestment is now creating welfare. a unique window of opportunity for the social Globalization of agricultural markets and sciences. growing international economic and political Many of today's problems are the interdependence have created a new policy consequence of pursuing technological change context and severely constrained national pol-without concern for external effects. Most of icy options. We face international issues rang-our environmental and many of our structural ing from protectionism and an immense trade problems in the United States today arise deficit to the impact of obsolescent interna-from this source. Over seven to eight decades, tional monetary institutions on exchange rate