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Abstract
This paper addresses two questions. The first is “What are the benefits of social science
research?”; the second is “How should they be measured?” The response to the first is
that, as with research in the physical sciences, the benefits should be identified in terms of
changes in economic surplus for different groups. It may be useful to use a framework
that considers the incidence of the effects of social science research on firms, households,
and government agencies. The response to the second question is that estimating returns
to social science research using conventional econometric techniques may be particularly
difficult. Instead, it may be necessary to resort to a case study approach, but care must be
taken to ensure that the cases selected for study are genuinely representative.