Bruce Babcock

Bruce Babcock’s career has been spent trying to gain unique insights into issues and problems facing agriculture and to then communicate these insights to foster improved understanding by interested parties. Some areas where he has made contributions include targeting of conservation benefits, farmer response to risk, impacts of biofuels on prices, rating of crop insurance products, and impacts of agricultural policies.

He has been most effective at communicating his insights by writing medium length (one to two thousand word) articles that explain the issue at hand and demonstrate how economic logic provides improved understanding of why things are the way they are. These articles are easily discoverable with search engines and their Internet-extended shelf-life increases the payoff from taking the time and effort to present clearly written and logically consistent analysis. The demand for thoughtful explanation and analysis has never been greater than it is today, perhaps because newspaper reporting has been drastically downsized and political and public discussion increasingly consists of sound bites.