Carlisle Runge

• PhD Wisconsin 1983; BA/MA Oxford University 1981;BA University of North Carolina 1974
• Professor at University of Minnesota

Rare diseases affect over three hundred million individuals globally. Investment in research and development remains incommensurate with the challenges rare diseases pose. Further investment in information sharing platforms to promote common and standardized network technologies for rare disease is needed. Rare disease R&D generates information and...

Current theories of decision making suggest that the neural circuits in mammalian brains (including humans) computationally combine representations of the past (memory), present (perception), and future (agentic goals) to take actions that achieve the needs of the agent. How information is represented within those neural circuits changes what compu...

The purchase and sale of assets such as housing will increasingly be affected by forces related to a changing climate. This article considers decisions over assets as a neurobiological process in which an associative memory with pattern completion informs choices. We develop these neuroeconomic explanations and analyze their implications for climat...

Governments over two centuries have repeatedly confronted whether freer trade helps or hinders the problem of widespread food shortages. This issue is of utmost concern in the current pandemic and the accompanying reaction of food markets to COVID-19, in which food insecurity is now a central challenge. This article will consider the historical rec...

Biological siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have increased risk of receiving an ASD diagnosis. In the U.S., most children with ASD are diagnosed after the optimal age to initiate early intervention which can reduce symptom severity and improve outcomes. Recent evidence suggests magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the first y...

This article will consider the Nazi Hunger Plan as an instrument of annihilation and tool of war, its retrospective reliance on the American example of resettlement of indigenous peoples, and how these policies prefigured the use of starvation against the people of Yemen by Saudi Arabia, aided and abetted by US and British foreign policy. It is par...

Objective Reducing sugar-sweetened beverage consumption is a public health priority, yet finding an effective and acceptable policy intervention is challenging. One strategy is to use proportional pricing (a consistent price per fluid ounce) instead of the typical value-priced approach where large beverages offer better value. The purpose of the pr...

This article proposes a set of sustainability indicators based on a combination of economic, social and health data that meet three tests: the indicators are simple, measurable and capable of being extended to workers in the field. They result from a scoring model which ranks the progress of agricultural projects in three key areas: (1) sustaining...

Pediatric pneumology has evolved in recent decades to become an important subdiscipline within pediatrics and adolescent medicine. The incidence and prevalence of diseases of the respiratory organs in children and adolescents is steadily increasing. Respiratory diseases in this age group differ in many respects from those in adults. Many chronic re...

Increasing demand for agricultural crops and a decline in the rate of yield improvements will require expansion of cropland (extensification), resulting in a loss of carbon storage. This paper uses global, spatially explicit data to analyze how extensification can be located to meet crop demand in a way that minimizes carbon losses under varying le...

Objective: Many jurisdictions in the USA and globally are considering raising the prices of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) through taxes as a strategy to reduce their consumption. The objective of the present study was to identify whether the rationale provided for an SSB price increase affects young adults' behavioural intentions and attitudes t...

This collection of work by Ruttan and Hayami spans their long career in the economics of technical and institutional change. At both a theoretical and empirical level, their analysis of induced innovation provides a solid foundation for understanding how and why technologies and institutions evolve in response to factors that constrain them. This b...

This chapter begins by discussing the ideas surrounding John Hicks's concept of induced innovation and the broadening of that idea by Vernon Ruttan and Yujiro Hayami to a more general theory of technological and institutional change. This is followed by a description of the pivotal environmental technology and policy changes in the late 1960s and e...

Significance We assess how to meet growing demand for agricultural production to minimize impact on the environment. Higher levels of population and affluence may require expanding land in agriculture by converting grasslands and forests to cropland. Such conversions often reduce valuable ecosystem services. Our research identifies where are the be...

Objective: Sedentariness is associated with weight gain and obesity. A treadmill desk is the combination of a standing desk and a treadmill that allow employees to work while walking at low speed. Design and Methods: The hypothesis was that a 1-year intervention with treadmill desks is associated with an increase in employee daily physical activity...

We evaluate the comparative productivity of maize and sugarcane biofuel feedstocks as a function of latitude. Solar radiation for photosynthesis varies by latitude and contributes to differential productivity of tropical and temperate zones. We calculate comparative productivity in two ways—the amount of net sugar energy produced per unit area, and...

p>Keywords: human services; disabled adults; social dividends; economic benefit State budget negotiations around the country have focused on cuts to human services programs for people with disabilities. These include Long-Term Care (LTC) programs for disabled adults. Using an LTC day program in Vadnais Heights, Minnesota as a case study, this arti...

Obesity overtaken by leanness as a repeated game: social networks and indirect reciprocity Abstract Recent research shows that social networks appear to explain obesity and leanness. A conceptual model of how these networks cause such an effect can be derived from economic and biological studies of the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma (IPD). This analys...

Several countries are working to develop the new policies promoting new non-petroleum-based clean energy to meet their energy demands. President Obama has called for an increase in the currently mandated level of biofuel production, from 36 billion gallons by 2022, including 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol, to 60 billion gallons by 2030. Earth T...

A few decades ago, fears that the world's population might outpace food production prompted a revolution in agriculture. An aggressive push for technological innovation increased crop yields dramatically—so much so that overconfidence and complacency soon took over. Now, global food stocks are too low, and global food prices are too high. The spect...

Agri-environmental measures play an important role in Italian rural areas, as shown by the financial commitment to the Rural Development programmes. However, in contrast with other European Union (EU) countries, policy-makers still have limited experience on how farmers approach environmental incentive schemes. This paper casts new light on this is...

President-elect Obama has proposed major spending to revitalize America’s infrastructure. But how? First, where we have gone and where we are is the result of an historical co-evolution of public transportation infrastructure and private economic investment. Where we need to go is toward more efficient modes of transport that economize on fuel and...

Agricultural economics arose in the late 19th century, combined the theory of the firm with marketing and organization theory, and developed throughout the 20th century largely as an empirical branch of general economics. The discipline was closely linked to empirical applications of mathematical statistics and made early and significant contributi...

This study analyzed data on students' food purchases linked to their school records to examine factors affecting the healthiness of their food choices and the impacts of reforms to promote healthiereating in a high school lunch program. U.S. Department of Agriculture's Healthy Eat- ing Index was used to evaluate the nutritional quality of the foods...

The National School Lunch Program is not meeting its nutritional goals. Data for 330 Minnesota school districts are analyzed to derive recommendations for improving the nutritional quality of school lunches. This study finds, contrary to widely held views, that lunch sales do not decline when healthier meals with less fat, for example, are served a...

The private and social costs of obesity have many causes, and their consequences can be grimly predicted with only rough accuracy. Among the most devastating is the increased incidence of diabetes, of which 60% can be directly attributed to weight gain. There are now about one billion people worldwide who are overweight or obese, compared with 850...

Ethanol and biodiesel will surely play a role in the energy future, but the rush to embrace them has overlooked numerous obstacles and untoward implications that merit careful assessment. Direct corn subsidies equaled $8.9 billion in 2005, but fell in 2006 and 2007 as high ethanol-driven corn prices reduced subsidy payments. In the 2005 energy bill...

Thanks to high oil prices and hefty subsidies, corn-based ethanol is now all the rage in the United States. But it takes so much supply to keep ethanol production going that the price of corn-and those of other food staples-is shooting up around the world. To stop this trend, and prevent even more people from going hungry, Washington must conserve...

The global debate over intellectual property rights (IPR) relating to genomics, software, and scientific information has divided developed and developing countries in international fora. Fundamental issues undergird these debates: who is to be excluded from various kinds of information, and who is to be included in the benefits of these ideas? An i...

Starting from the McSharry reform in 1992, environmental conservation and minimization of negative agricultural impacts through adoption of agri-environmental farming practices have gained momentum within the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Agenda 2000 and the recent issuing of Regulation 1698/2005 – with its strong accent on CAPâÂ...

Agricultural economics arose in the late 19th century, combined the theory of the firm with marketing and organization theory, and developed throughout the 20th century largely as an empirical branch of general economics. The discipline was closely linked to empirical applications of mathematical statistics and made early and significant contributi...

“Nature hath neither core nor skin, Is both at once outside and in.” Goethe (1749–1832)

Hopkins School District in Minnesota implemented an innovative school feeding program, which provides nutritionally sound foods that appeal to students. With access to a unique data set containing students’ food service purchases and demographic data from Hopkins High School, we use logit models to analyze the impact of different phases of the p...

Minnesota is by any standard one of the leading agricultural places in the United States, both in terms of farm production and as a headquarters for some of the largest agrifood and agronomic enterprises in the world. Several factors are likely to affect the future of Minnesota agriculture in the 21st century. First, the state is likely to remain a...

The tension between enterprise as a means and sustainability as an end is directly related to the tension between rights to exclude others from a stream of private benefits and rights to be included in streams of environmental improvements. Resolving this tension is necessary if we are to square the circle between sustainability and enterprise. I b...

"In contrast to widely held uncertainties about Sub-Saharan Africa's ability to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), recent successes in African smallholder farming show that agriculture could play a key role in helping the region reach those goals. African governments and the donor community have recognized this potential and have pledged...

"To end hunger and prevent the recurrence of famine and starvation, we need to take the following steps: invest in public health, child nutrition, education, women's and girls' social status, and other components of human capital; reform public institutions and create innovative funding and partnership arrangements; change government policies at al...

Supporters see the biotechnology revolution in agriculture as a Promethean step forward, whereas critics see it as the start down a slope to futuristic disaster. The supporters are right about the potential benefits of genetically engineered crops, but the critics are correct that the situation calls for government regulation. Free markets alone wi...

No Abstract Available

My purpose is to consider how the events of September 11, 2001 have changed how we think about the world food system and the possibilities for agro-bioterrorism. I will divide them into three categories: direct threats to the world food system from agro-bioterrorism; market and development assistance disruptions arising from terrorist and anti-terr...

This essay provides a brief narrative economic history of the timber industry in Wisconsin, including details of my family's involvement in the industry. It evaluates the constraints to production, the major methods of timber harvesting, and the men and companies that dominated the trade. It concludes that the industry left an indelible physical, e...

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) burst onto the scene in 1996 with the rapid commercial introduction in the United States of genetically engineered corn (maize), cotton, and soybeans. By 1998, more than 500 genetically modified plant varieties were available in the United States, accounting for 28 percent of the areas (2.57 million hectares) p...

This paper traces the evolution of the debate over a GEO, and analyzes its problems and opportunities in the world trading system. It first considers the genesis of proposals for a GEO, and provides a short historical account. Second, it offers one view of what a GEO might entail. The next two sections offer a brief summary of some of the main argu...

This paper provides an overview of the historical and cultural factors that have contributed to divergent U.S. and European views on GMOs, and to resulting different national regulatory approaches for these products, specifically labelling policy. Within the context of the international trading system, these national policy choices will have impact...

Amid all the fuss over genetically modified food, environmentalists and consumer activists have overlooked a vital challenge for the developing world: food security. As the South's population grows, it will need more food, a more varied and nutritious diet, and better access to the North's markets. Rich countries must do their part by slashing trad...

Recent empirical work suggests an inverted U-shaped relationship between pollution and national income (the environmental Kuznet's curve). This work has typically ignored the fact that pollutants are dispersed to varying degrees. This study shows how varying levels of spatial pollution dispersion (or "publicness") can affect pollution-income relati...

Voluntary negative labeling may provide a solution to the current controversy over labeling of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in agriculture. The U.S. experience in the dairy sector with milk from cows treated with recombinant bovine somatotropin offers an example of how a voluntary negative labeling strategy evolved.

The purpose of this brief article is to assess the current controversy over Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in agriculture and its potential implications for the global trading system. More importantly, it offers a solution to the serious potential for injury to this system, to be developed below. The remainder of this article is divided into...

We shall argue that many environmental dilemmas such as transboundary pollution problems can be described as Prisoners' Dilemmas (PDs). Taken on their own, these environmental PDs lead to inferior outcomes, and offer no internal incentives for successful resolution. However, when linked to trade (or collective security) agreements, described as Ass...

For more than 25 years, Heldref has published award-winning science and environmental magazines and journals for both the professional and the individual with a general interest. These publications provide the latest research, in-depth articles on specific topics, and practical applications. Editors and advisors from well-respected colleges and uni...

In the scheme of things, the 1996 Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform Act (FAIR) contained important breaks with a tradition of crop-by-crop subsidies dating back to the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933. It freed many producers of "program commodities" (maize, grain sorghum, wheat, barley, oats, cotton and rice) from a system of crop-spe...

This paper outlines emerging issues in agricultural trade and the environment. Its intent is to provoke discussion, rather than to capture all of the issues and details that merit analysis. It focuses primarily on "micro" issues rather than global issues such as green house gas emissions or biodiversity, although these are in many respects simply t...

The 1996 Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act (FAIR) contained important breaks with a tradition of crop-by-crop subsidies dating back to the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933. Farmers with recorded base acres were given the opportunity (which nearly all accepted) to sign a seven-year 'contract' with the US Department of Agriculture (US...

The new Farm Bill, the Federal Agricultural Improvement Act (FAIR) of 1996, contains numerous new provisions which mark important breaks with the past. In this brief summary, we will focus on three areas of potential interest to an international audience, first briefly detailing the changes, then offering a view from one author's perspective as a p...

The practice and theory of collective action is constrained by a dearth of rigorous empirical tests of why and how such institutions emerge and evolve, and under what conditions they can be successful. Empirical analyses of cooperative watershed management in Haiti reveal that, given a conducive environment and political leadership, groups will eme...

A number of factors including budget pressures, emphasis on environmentally sensitive agriculture, emphasis on finding agricultural export markets, and anti-agricultural program sentiment have fueled a climate for change in United States agricultural policy. Whether significant changes will occur depends on the political strength of agricultural in...

"Soil erosion is an important contributor to the agricultural decline, rural poverty and emigration which characterize rural Haiti today. Numerous soil conservation projects have used top-down approaches which persuade peasant participation with external incentives and inherently assume peasants to be individualistic, non-cooperative actors. These...

A number of factors including budget pressures, emphasis on environmentally sensitive agriculture, emphasis on finding agricultural export markets, and anti-agricultural program sentiment have fueled a climate for change in United States agricultural policy. Whether significant changes will occur depends on the political strength of agricultural in...

The purpose of this brief analysis is to consider the potential points of contact between a program of "green support" and the existing commodity programs in U.S. agriculture. These points of contact may take the form of conflict, complementarity, or neutrality. We shall assume initially that green support is "added" to the programs as they exist i...

The primary message I would like to leave with you today is that these are perilous and risky days in international trade and trade policy. All around the world, more open markets are threatened by political and economic instability. In Europe, a deep recession continues. The collapse of the European currency relationships reflects the weakness of...

This paper is a brief review of current problems in which trade and environmental issues intersect. After a statement of these problems, it focuses on some recent empirical research and future research needs of special relevance to agricultural economists.

This paper examines the structure and direction of developing Asia’s trade over the past two decades. The impacts on developing Asia of the economic slowdown in 2009–2010 in high-income countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which includes the European Union (EU), Japan, and United States (US) are projected t...

This study has attempted to respond to four key questions surrounding the debate over NAFTA and its impact on Minnesota. The first question concerns its employment impacts: Will NAFTA cost jobs in Minnesota? The answer appears to be no. The magnitude of employment impacts from NAFTA is small but positive. Many of the gains will be in Minnesota agri...

Trade and environment have become the preoccupation of economists concerned with environmental protection, and of environmentalists concerned that protection of the environment may sometimes require protectionist trade policies. There are two distinct facets of this preoccupation. The first is the effect of trade liberalization on environmental qua...

The paper is divided into four sections. First, watershed management in Haiti is presented as a problem of voluntary collective action in which small watersheds are the common responsibility of a group of users. Second, this situation is given formal expression as a "public goods" problem, in which obligations to contribute time and labor to the ma...

Agriculture has been at the center of conflicts over world trade from the beginning in 1986 of the eighth, Uruguay Round, of multilateral trade negotiations. Yet it is only in the final phases of the Round that linkages from trade to the environment have come to the fore. In this paper, the specific linkages from trade to the environment in the agr...