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The Role of R&D in Productivity Growth: The Case of Agriculture in New Zealand: 1927 to 2001

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Author Info
Julia Hall
Grant M Scobie () (New Zealand Treasury)
Abstract

Productivity growth is a key determinant of rising living standards. The agricultural sector has been an important contributor to the overall growth of productivity in New Zealand. The average rate of multifactor productivity growth in agriculture from 1926-27 to 2000-01 was 1.8%. We find evidence that this rate has been increasing especially since the reforms of the 1980s. This paper estimates the contribution that R&D has made to agricultural productivity. It develops a theoretical framework based on the stock of knowledge available to producers. This model incorporates foreign stocks of knowledge and the spill-in effect for New Zealand. The estimation allows for extended lag effects of research spending on productivity. We find that foreign knowledge is consistently an important factor in explaining the growth of productivity. It appears that the agricultural sector relies heavily on drawing on the foreign stock of knowledge generated off-shore. The contribution of domestic knowledge generated by New Zealand’s investment in R&D is less clear cut. However, there is typically a significant positive relation between domestic knowledge and the growth of productivity. We find a wide range of estimates of the return to domestic R&D. The results are sensitive to the type of model used and the specification of the variables. Based on our preferred model we estimate that investment in domestic R&D has generated an annual rate of return of 17%. The results underscore the importance of foreign knowledge in a small open economy. The very existence of foreign knowledge may be a necessary condition for achieving productivity growth in a small open economy. However in no way could it be argued that this was sufficient. Having a domestic capability that can receive and process the spill-ins from foreign knowledge is vital to capturing the benefits. The challenge is to be able to isolate those effects from aggregate data for the agricultural sector. In that task we claim only modest success.

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Paper provided by New Zealand Treasury in its series Treasury Working Paper Series with number 06/01.

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Length: 70
Date of creation: Mar 2006
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Handle: RePEc:nzt:nztwps:06/01

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Postal: New Zealand Treasury, PO Box 3724, Wellington, New Zealand
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Related research
Keywords: New Zealand technological change R&D productivity economics of knowledge spillovers rates of return agriculture

Find related papers by JEL classification:
O30 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Technological Change - - - General
O40 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

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  1. Frantzen, Dirk, 2000. " R&D, Human Capital and International Technology Spillovers: A Cross-Country Analysis," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 102(1), pages 57-75, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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    Other versions:
  5. Zvi Griliches, 1992. "The Search for R&D Spillovers," NBER Working Papers 3768, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  6. Diego Comin, 2004. "R&D: A Small Contribution to Productivity Growth," NBER Working Papers 10625, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  7. Petri Rouvinen, 2002. "The Existence Of R&D Spillovers: A Cost Function Estimation With Random Coefficients," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 11(6), pages 525-541, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Jaffe, Adam B & Trajtenberg, Manuel & Henderson, Rebecca, 1993. "Geographic Localization of Knowledge Spillovers as Evidenced by Patent Citations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 108(3), pages 577-98, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  9. Schultz, Theodore W, 1975. "The Value of the Ability to Deal with Disequilibria," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 827-46, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Eaton, Jonathan & Kortum, Samuel, 1999. "International Technology Diffusion: Theory and Measurement," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 40(3), pages 537-70, August.
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  12. Robin Johnson & W. A. Razzak & Steven Stillman, 2007. "Has New Zealand benefited from its investments in research & development?," Applied Economics, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 39(19), pages 2425-2440. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  13. Jeffrey I. Bernstein, 1988. "Costs of Production, Intra- and Interindustry R&D Spillovers: Canadian Evidence," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 21(2), pages 324-47, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  16. Johansen, Soren, 1991. "Estimation and Hypothesis Testing of Cointegration Vectors in Gaussian Vector Autoregressive Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(6), pages 1551-80, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  18. Charles I. Jones & John C. Williams, 1998. "Measuring The Social Return To R&D," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 113(4), pages 1119-1135, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  19. Zvi Griliches, 1979. "Issues in Assessing the Contribution of Research and Development to Productivity Growth," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 92-116, Spring. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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