Long-Term Research Agendas in Economics (and Law and Economics?)

The NSF has posted responses to its call for “Long-Term Research Agendas.”  HT: Peter Klein. The entire set is available here.  Here’s the description:

This is a compendium of fifty-four papers written by distinguished economists in response to an invitation by the National Science Foundation’s Directorate for the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (NSF/SBE) to economists and relevant research communities in August 2010 to write white papers that describe grand challenge questions in their sciences that transcend near-term funding cycles and are “likely to drive next generation research in the social, behavioral, and economic sciences.” These papers offer a number of exciting and at times provocative ideas about future research agendas in economics. The papers could also generate compelling ideas for infrastructure projects, new methodologies and important research topics.

Peter points to a handful that are also likely to interest readers here at TOTM:

Challenges for Social Sciences: Institutions and Economic Development
Daron Acemoglu

Making the Case for Contract Theory
Oliver Hart

Research Opportunities in Social and Economic Networks
Matthew O. Jackson

The Economics of Digitization: An Agenda for NSF
Shane M. Greenstein, Josh Lerner, and Scott Stern

The Productivity Grand Challenge: Why Do Organizations Differ so Much?
John Van Reenen

In addition, I thought I’d highlight a few more that caught my attention:

A Proposal for Future SBE/NSF Funded Research: Refocusing Microeconomic Policy Research
American Economic Association, Ten Years and Beyond: Economists Answer NSF’s Call for Long-Term Research Agendas
Steven Berry

A Research Agenda for Development Economics
American Economic Association, Ten Years and Beyond: Economists Answer NSF’s Call for Long-Term Research Agendas
Esther Duflo

Challenges in Econometrics
American Economic Association, Ten Years and Beyond: Economists Answer NSF’s Call for Long-Term Research Agendas
Guido W. Imbens

Implications of the Financial Crisis
American Economic Association, Ten Years and Beyond: Economists Answer NSF’s Call for Long-Term Research Agendas
Randall Krozsner

What is the Right Amount of Choice?
American Economic Association, Ten Years and Beyond: Economists Answer NSF’s Call for Long-Term Research Agendas
Jonathan Gruber

Clinical Trials in Economics
American Economic Association, Ten Years and Beyond: Economists Answer NSF’s Call for Long-Term Research Agendas
Hal R. Varian

 

A question for our readers: What would be the most compelling long-term research agendas for law & economics?