U.S. agricultural research deflators: 1890–1985

Journal of Productivity Analysis, 2012

The internal rate of return (IRR) to public investment in agricultural R&D is estimated for each of the continental U.S. states. Theoretically, our contribution provides a way of obtaining the returns to a local public good using Rothbart's concept of virtual prices. Empirically, we use the spatial dependency among states generated by knowledge spillovers to define the 'appropriate' jurisdiction. We estimate an average own-state rate of 17% and a social rate of 29%. These figures should inform the policy debate on the allocation of federal funds to research in the actual food crisis environment.

1997

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

Over the years, proposals have recommended shifting the focus of public agricultural research from applied to basic research, and giving higher priority to peer-reviewed, competitively funded grants. The public agricultural research system in the United States is a Federal-State partnership, with most research conducted at State institutions. In recent years, State funds have declined, USDA funds have remained fairly steady (with changes in the composition of funding), but funding from other Federal agencies and the private sector has increased. Efforts to increase competitively awarded funds for research have fl uctuated over time, as have special grants (earmarks). Along with shifts in funding sources, the proportion of basic research being undertaken within the public agricultural research system has declined. This report focuses on the way public agricultural research is funded in the United States and how changes in funding sources over the last 25 years refl ect changes in the type of research pursued.

Review of Agricultural Economics, 2003

Efforts to improve public agricultural research efficienc include calls to increase use of competitive grants. This paper empirically assesses different instruments the USDA uses to fund state-level research. Compared with other instruments, competitive grants focus more on basic research and are concentrated among fewer states. Model results suggest that top-ranked biology and agricultural science programs were strong determinants of states' shares of competitive grants. Other significan factors were agricultural sector size and number of agricultural scientists. USDA-funded state-level research focus did not change significantl because competitive grants comprised only 15% of these funds and other instruments counteracted their influence G lobally, changes in technologies, privatization of agricultural research and the political economy of public financ have led to funding constraints for public agricultural research. At the same time, research institutions face demands to broaden their research focus and increase efficienc . Changes in funding mechanisms have been proposed as one means of increasing efficienc . In the United States, in particular, some analysts have called for less emphasis on allocating Federal funds to states on a formula basis. Instead, groups such as the National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council have recommended greater use of competitive grants, allocated on the basis of peer review (National

2000

Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, 2017

This article reviews the current debate on whether U.S. agricultural productivity growth is slowing. It also assesses recent research on how productivity is related to long-term investment in research and development (R&D). It describes significant changes taking place in the U.S. agricultural research system, including the growing role of private agribusiness as a main developer of new agricultural technologies and what this implies for agricultural science policy. The conclusion has suggestions for future research on these issues.

2007

Social Science Research Network, 2007

Over the last several decades, the U.S. agricultural sector has sustained impressive productivity growth. The Nation's agricultural research system, including Federal-State public research as well as private-sector research, has been a key driver of this growth. Economic analysis finds strong and consistent evidence that investment in agricultural research has yielded high returns per dollar spent. These returns include benefits not only to the farm sector but also to the food industry and consumers in the form of more abundant commodities at lower prices. While studies using different methods and coverage give a range of estimates of returns to agricultural research, there is a consensus that the payoff from the government's investment in agricultural research has been high.

Agricultural Economics, 2006

Allocations of research funds across programs are often made for efficiency reasons. Social science research is shown to have small, lagged but significant effects on U.S. agricultural efficiency when public agricultural R&D and extension are simultaneously taken into account. Farm management and marketing research variables are used to explain variations in estimates of allocative and technical efficiency using a Bayesian approach that incorporates stylized facts concerning lagged research impacts in a way that is less restrictive than popular polynomial distributed lags. Results are reported in terms of means and standard deviations of estimated probability distributions of parameters and long-run total multipliers. Extension is estimated to have a greater impact on both allocative and technical efficiency than either R&D or social science research.

American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 2014

This work analyzes the research productivity of agricultural and life science faculty in US Land Grant research universities from 1975 to 2005. Production function estimations that control for inputs and demographic characteristics reveal significant improvements after 1980 in faculty research productivity per unit time, especially in the non-top ten universities. Because, however, time available to faculty for research has decreased substantially in the past three decades, overall journal article output per faculty did not increase after the 1980s. Our findings demonstrate large productivity increases, but raise concerns about the optimal allocation of faculty time.

American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 1992

Nonparametric productivity analysis is extended by endogenizing technical progress as a function of public and private research expenditures. Results indicate that 30 year-lags are required to fully capture the effects of public research expenditures on U.S. agricultural productivity. Compared to public research, private research has a stronger influence on farm productivity in the short term but a smaller influence in the longer term. The internal rate of return is found to be 0.41 for public research and 0.36 for private research.

Quality & Quantity, 2019

The economic crisis and the pressure towards efficient and effective use of public money claim for a higher accountability of research expenditure, as well as for a greater proximity of research to the needs of community. While agricultural productivity represents a worldwide goal for agricultural research as a response to growing food, feed and energy demands, other objectives besides productivity are becoming central. The challenge is to take into account broader impacts that go beyond academic and economic ones, and to improve knowledge on the causal impact-generating mechanisms. In this paper, we adopt a causal perspective and estimate the impact of agricultural research expenditure on multiple dimensions. We develop a structural equation model relating research expenditure, research activity, productivity and multiple impact indicators within a dynamic impact pathway, accounting for existing domain knowledge on causal relationships and their lag structures. The model is applied on EU 15 countries over the period 1980-2014, making use of official statistics from several European databases.

1995

Expenditure data for production research in agriculture were collected from the published financial accounts of CSIRO, State Departments of Agriculture and major Universities with interests in agricultural research. fn nominal terms expenditure on rural research in Australia rose from $9m in 1953 to $411m in 1988. Research intensity in nominal terms based on agric1..1ltural GOP rose by a factor of 7.5 from 0.6 percent in 1953 to 4.4 percent in 1988 after peaking at 4.9 percent in 1986. In real terms however, the increase in public sector research has been much less. In dollar terms expenditure increased from $9m in 1953 to $38m in 1988, a factor of about four. The growth in research intensity was also much lower. Real research intensity increased from 0.6 percent in 1953 to 1.6 percent in 1988 after a peak of 2.1 percent in 1973. This suggests pubic sector support for rural research, after increasing significantly in the •sos and '60s, has been drifting down since the early 70s.