James T. Bonnen is professor of agricultural economics at Michigan State University. He received a B.A. in economics from Texas A&M University, an M.A. in economics from Duke University and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. Public policy, primarily for rural development and for agriculture, is his research and teaching focus. his most recent research interests include the changing land grant university system, information systems theory, the design and management of statistically based policy decision systems, and agricultural research policy. Dr. Bonnen served as Chairman of the National Academy of Sciences Panel on Statistics for Rural Development Policy in 1979-1980, Director of the President's Federal Statistical System Reorganization Project in 1978-1980, as a member of the President's National Advisory Commission on Rural Poverty in 1966-1967, and as Senior Staff Economist with the President's Council of Economic Advisers in 1963-1965.
In 1981 he received the American Statistical Association's Washington Statistical Society's "Julius Shiskin Award for Outstanding Achievement in Economic Statistics." He was elected President of the American Agricultural Economics Association in 1975 and made a Fellow of that Association in 1978. In 1984 he was elected a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and in 1992 also elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Dr. Bonnen is the author of numerous articles, including "Assessment of the Current Agricultural Data Base: An Information System Approach" (1977); "Observations on the Changing Nature of National Agricultural Policy Decision Processes: 1946-1976" (1980); "Federal Statistical Coordination Today: A Disaster or a Disgrace?" (1983); "A Century of Science in Agriculture: Lessons for Science Policy" (1986); "Why is Agricultural Policy so Difficult to Reform?" (with Bill Browne)(1989); and "The Land Grant Idea and the Evolving Outreach University" (1997).