be important in the following areas (Rossmiller, ed.,
1978).
 The kinds of technology developed can be advan-
tageously researched by sociologists who study changes
in rural social infrastructure and the future of part-time
vs. large-scale commercial farms. It is particularly im-
portant to understand the effects of higher real wage
rates and changes in the size and geographic location
of populations and labor forces.
 Studies of changes in the lifestyles and objectives of rural
people should be for non-farmers as well as farmers to
guide the creation of technology and its regulation and
adoption. Because of its important social and economic,
technical and human dimensions, research on such sub-
jects is necessarily multidisciplinary but has important
economic and sociological dimensions.
 Computerized contracts and controls will restructure
the future production, marketing and processing of farm
products. These will have important social implications
that should be researched by multidisciplinary teams.
 Demographic changes are essential components of
systems analysis at macro as well as individual firm and
enterprise levels. Rural sociologists can contribute to the
modeling of demographic variables. Cohort analyses are
useful not only in modeling human populations and
labor forces but, with modifications, in modeling
national livestock herds, tractor "herds," orchard
populations and the changing age composition of any
reproducible but durable, productive and renewable
resource.

Disciplinary Research in Social
and Institutional Sciences
 This section addresses DISC research in the underly-
ing social and institutional sciences that help decision
makers and those engaged in SM and PS research deter-
mine appropriateness, creation, development and use of
biological and physical technologies. Beyond that men-
tioned, DISC research in the social and institutional
sciences should be done both within and outside the ARE
to serve other purposes.

 The Theory of Public and/or Private Risk Bearing -
Some technological advances reduce risks in agricultural
production (Shoemaker, 1982; Johnson, 1977), while
others increase them. Risks are borne by societies, both
socially and privately. For private managers, it is im-
portant that DISC research be done on the important
theoretical and empirical differences between
preferences for gains and risk, and differences between
aversion of loss and risk aversion (Johnson, forthcoming-
d; Robison and Fleisher, forthcoming). Institutional
arrangements for the public bearing of the increased risks
associated with some new technologies should be


addressed. The theory of public risk bearing-associated
with, for instance, environmental pollution, food safety,
and the farming of fragile soils in dangerous
environments-needs development for understanding of
how public institutions can be shaped and administered
to handle risks that are beyond the capacity of private
managers.

 The Theory of Producing Joint Products from
Resources Sometimes Under Joint Public and Private
Ownership Disciplinary economic, political science
and sociological research should be directed at improv-
ing theory for specifying optimal generation and utiliza-
tion of multiple outputs from combinations of privately
and publicly controlled resources of low monetary pro-
ductivity. The roles of taxation and subsidization need
specific attention. The relevance and importance of such
DISC research in economics is seen with publicly and
privately owned range, forest and water resources.
Growth rates for forest products are typically low in rela-
tion to interest rates. Maintaining and utilizing resources
to grow timber products advantageously often requires
both public and private support to generate a wide
variety of products and services for commercial use and
for the benefit of various segments of the general public.

 Economic Aspects of Conservation and Investments
in Natural Resources It is difficult to make decisions
about the optimum rates to use up non-renewable
resources, to invest in the development of improvable
resources and to preserve maintainable resources. Such
decisions are crucial with respect to fossil energy and
water resources and soils that are highly erodable or ex-
tremely responsive to investments in productive capaci-
ty. The theory for such optimizing decisions is not fully
developed. Such theory as developed calls for the
measurement of non-monetary values accruing to dif-
ferent persons in time and through generations of time.
The measurement problem is a more serious quantitative
one than we encounter in most other science (Hicks,
1941; Majumdar, 1958; Reder, 1947) (see the section
below on measurement of values). Still further, im-
perfections in knowledge require subdecisions about the
rule to use in defining optima. Decision rules to define
optima under imperfect knowledge involve distributions
of power-market, political, social, police and, in some
cases, the power of knowledge itself. Special measure-
ment difficulties are introduced when "bads" are im-
posed on certain persons in order to confer "goods" on
still others. Substantial improvements are needed in
public decision-making theory (Shoemaker, 1982) and
in the measurement of values. Without these, im-
provements, it will be difficult to develop sufficient
knowledge of benefits and losses to solve the problems
of disinvestment in non-renewable resources such as
petroleum and water reserves and productive land.