Email: prajsic@uwaterloo.ca
Location: HH 242
Phone: 519-888-4567 x 40748
CV: Predrag Rajsic
BSc Specialized Honours, Agricultural Economics, University of Guelph
MSc, Food, Agricultural, and Resource Economics, University of Guelph
PhD, Food, Agricultural, and Resource Economics, University of Guelph
Areas of Specialization: environmental economics, economics of regulation, business finance
Biography
What follows is part of a welcome note that I use in all my courses. Its aim is to illustrate why everyone should know some economics.
I used to be a billionaire back in 1993. This is 500 billion Yugoslavian dinars, and I used to own a few of these.
Throughout the 1990s, I lived in what used to be Yugoslavia until then, a region torn by war and extreme economic hardships. This was the time of one of the worst episodes of hyperinflation in human history. I remember the days when people ran to the store to spend their paycheque quickly, before the prices of everything doubled the same day.
A high schooler at the time, I was quite puzzled by this situation, especially because I saw a rapid decline in people’s well-being. When I turned on the TV, our politicians kept repeating that they needed to keep printing more money to help the citizens keep up with the rapidly rising prices. There was nothing in my high school curriculum that could help me understand why people are living so miserably in my country.
Only after I started studying economics, I realized its tremendous power to explain why some societies are poor while others are prosperous. I also learned that the Yugoslavian politicians in the 1990s were lying to us. It is not the rise in prices that prompted the politicians to print more money. The causality runs in the opposite direction. It was the politicians’ desire to fund the failing government programs that prompted them to print more money and then caused the prices to rise.
This is only one social issue that can be vastly clarified using the economic way of thinking. In your future, you will be deciding on important economic matters by supporting or opposing future economic policies. If I can teach you how to use the economic way of thinking to determine whether those economic policies will bring the promised consequences, I consider my mission accomplished.
Selected publications
- SF Yanni, A De Laporte, P Rajsic, C Wagner-Riddle, and A Weersink. "The environmental and economic efficacy of on-farm beneficial management practices for mitigating soil-related greenhouse gas emissions in Ontario, Canada", Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems 36 (3), 307-320, 2, (2021).
- P Rajsic, and G Fox. "The Challenges Facing Evidence-Based Policy Making in Canadian Agriculture", Austrian Economics: The Next Generation, 1, (2018).
- S Yanni, P Rajsic, C Wagner-Riddle, and A Weersink. "A Review of the Efficacy and Cost-Effectiveness of On-Farm BMPs for Mitigating Soil-Related GHG Emissions", 3, Working Papers, (2018).
- P Rajsic, A Weersink, A Navabi, KP Pauls. "Economics of genomic selection: the role of prediction accuracy and relative genotyping costs", Euphytica 210 (2), 259-276, 25, (2016).
- P Rajsic, G Fox. "Environmental externalities, comparative advantage, and the location of production: An application to the Canadian dairy industry", Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, 4, (2016).
- P Rajsic, E Ramlal, G Fox. "Canadian agricultural environmental policy: from the right to farm to farming right", The Economics of Regulation in Agriculture: Compliance with Public and Private Standard, Department of Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics, 11, (2012).
- P Rajsic, A Weersink, M Gandorfer. "Risk and nitrogen application levels", Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, 65,(2009).
- P Rajsic, A Weersink. "Do farmers waste fertilizer? A comparison of ex post optimal nitrogen rates and ex ante recommendations by model, site and year", Agricultural Systems 97 (1-2), 56-67, 92,(2008).
- M Gandorfer, P Rajsic. "Modeling economic optimum nitrogen rates for winter wheat when inputs affect yield and output-price", Agricultural Economics Review 9 (389-2016-23335), 18, (2008).