On the government side of things, there was a huge gap in reliable, accurate
agricultural information from other countries that the USDA uses to
calculate expected world prices, demand, etc. This info later translated
into ag. support policy. In some cases (where the host country was
ameniable), there was a concerted effort to create timely and consistent
estimates for this data by standardizing the methods and providing
technical/statistical advice (in Russia, for example, the US supports a
math. economist who works with Goskomstat). This has been fairly
successful, and crop forecasts are much improved.
Chelsea
>On Thu, 5 Jul 2007, Paul Manna wrote:
>
>>Hello everyone,
>>
>>I'm presently writing a paper about the challenges facing users and
>>producers of education data in the United States. The goal of the paper
>>is
>>to describe some of the reasons why policymakers, school officials, and
>>parents do not always have the kind of education data they need or would
>>like to have.
>>
>>I was hoping to incorporate some comparisons to other policy areas (in the
>>US and other countries, even) and wanted to ask list members this
>>question:
>>Can you think of a policy area where data systems used to be quite weak
>>(fragmented, not user-friendly, unreliable from year to year, etc.) but
>>after much effort to improve things now there is basically consensus that
>>things are really quite good? In other words, data systems that used to
>>not
>>talk with each other are now well integrated; data are now available in a
>>timely and user-friendly manner; policymakers can trust that the data they
>>have are accurate?
>>
>>I'm happy to hear examples that come from pieces you've read or written,
>>and
>>from your own personal experiences in the scholarly and policy worlds,
>>including experiences at any level of government.
>>
>>Thanks much,
>>Paul
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>Paul Manna
>>Assistant Professor
>>Department of Government
>>Thomas Jefferson Program in Public Policy
>>College of William and Mary
>>
>>http://pmanna.people.wm.edu/
>>tel: 757-221-3024 / fax: 757-221-1868
>>
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