Paul W. Heisey is an Agricultural Economist who retired from the USDA Economic Research Service in 2019. At ERS, his work focused on agricultural research and development, intellectual property, and genetic resources.

From 1985 to 1998, he worked for CIMMYT in Pakistan, Malawi, and Mexico, where his research focused on impact assessment and the economics of technical change in cereals. This included work on varietal development and diffusion, seed systems, and fertilizer use in developing countries.