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Some useful methods for measuring the benefits of social science research:

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Author Info
Kilpatrick, Henry E., Jr.
Abstract

What are the “returns” to policy-oriented research in the social sciences? One presumes that the positive net benefits to society, or at least a certain segment of society, would be treated as returns, but how does one determine what these benefits are? Clearly benefits to some social science research are available because society continued to fund it, albeit at different levels in different locations and times. This paper cannot fully answer the questions of what it is we seek to measure in any empirical sense, although it will discuss this issue. The returns in the marketplace for social science research are those that exist in the eye of the customer who bears the cost of the research. This paper's primary goal is to offer the client some ways of measuring these returns. It does this with particular emphasis on methods that are often overlooked, even though some of them have been available to the analyst for decades. It also explains some of the costs and benefits of each method and explains how some of them may be used together in order to achieve a higher level of efficacy in measurement.

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Paper provided by International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in its series Impact assessments with number 5.

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Date of creation: 1998
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Handle: RePEc:fpr:impass:5

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Related research
Keywords: Rate of return.; Social sciences Research Evaluation.; Impact assessment;

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

  1. Denton, Frank T, 1985. "Data Mining as an Industry," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(1), pages 124-27, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Levy, David M. & Feigenbaum, Susan, 1990. "Testing the replication hypothesis : When the data set is subject to gross error," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 49-53, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Paula E. Stephan, 1996. "The Economics of Science," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(3), pages 1199-1235, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Nikias Sarafoglou & Kingsley E. Haynes, 1996. "University productivity in Sweden: a demonstration and explanatory analysis for economics and business programs," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 285-304.
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Kutschukian, Jean-Marc, 2008. "A Framework For The Economic Evaluation Of Environmental Science," 2008 Conference (52nd), February 5-8, 2008, Canberra, Australia 6026, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society. [Downloadable!]
  2. Ryan, James G., 2003. "Evaluating the impact of agricultural projection modeling using the "IMPACT” framework," Impact assessments 17, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). [Downloadable!]
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