IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/aareaj/333769.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Knowledge productivity and the returns to agricultural research: a review

Author

Listed:
  • Andersen, Matthew A.

Abstract

This paper describes the identification, specification, estimation, and evaluation of econometric models of knowledge productivity and the returns-to-research. General issues related to these models are discussed and placed in context of the literature. The path from R&D investment to economic benefit is complex, convoluted, generally unknown and possibly misrepresented. The complexity arises from the intricate spatial spillover relationships and the very long time periods involved, which complicate any econometric analysis. The relevant R&D investment data are typically unavailable, incomplete and poorly measured (or approximated). The appropriate calculation of the financial benefit is not entirely clear. Some parsimonious suggestions for future research are presented.

Suggested Citation

  • Andersen, Matthew A., 2019. "Knowledge productivity and the returns to agricultural research: a review," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 63(2), April.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aareaj:333769
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.333769
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/333769/files/ajar12296.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.333769?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alan McCunn & Wallace E. Huffman, 2000. "Convergence in U.S. Productivity Growth for Agriculture: Implications of Interstate Research Spillovers for Funding Agricultural Research," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 82(2), pages 370-388.
    2. Roberto Esposti, 2003. "Public R&D investment and cost structure in Italian agriculture, 1960--1995," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Foundation for the European Review of Agricultural Economics, vol. 30(4), pages 509-537, December.
    3. Julian M. Alston & Matthew A. Andersen & Jennifer S. James & Philip G. Pardey, 2011. "The Economic Returns to U.S. Public Agricultural Research," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1257-1277.
    4. Alston, Julian M. & Marra, Michele C. & Pardey, Philip G. & Wyatt, T.J., 2000. "Research returns redux: a meta-analysis of the returns to agricultural R&D," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 44(2), pages 1-31.
    5. James F. Oehmke, 2017. "Re‐Examining the Reported Rates of Return to Food and Agricultural Research and Development: Comment," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 99(3), pages 818-826, April.
    6. Wallace E. Huffman & Robert E. Evenson, 1992. "Contributions of Public and Private Science and Technology to U.S. Agricultural Productivity," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 74(3), pages 751-756.
    7. Bervejillo, Jose E. & Alston, Julian M. & Tumber, Kabir P., 2011. "The Economic Returns to Public Agricultural Research in Uruguay," Working Papers 162518, Robert Mondavi Institute Center for Wine Economics.
    8. Shiva Makki & Luther Tweeten & Cameron Thraen, 1999. "Investing in Research and Education versus Commodity Programs: Implications for Agricultural Productivity," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 77-94, August.
    9. Aghion, Philippe & Howitt, Peter, 1992. "A Model of Growth through Creative Destruction," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(2), pages 323-351, March.
    10. J. M. Alston & G. M. Scobie, 1983. "Distribution of Research Gains in Multistage Production Systems: Comment," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 65(2), pages 353-356.
    11. Norton, George W. & Davis, Jeffrey S., 1979. "Review Of Methods Used To Evaluate Returns To Agricultural Research," Staff Papers 13520, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    12. Daniel K.N. Johnson & Robert E. Evenson, 2000. "How Far Away Is Africa? Technological Spillovers to Agriculture and Productivity," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 82(3), pages 743-749.
    13. Adams, James D, 1990. "Fundamental Stocks of Knowledge and Productivity Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 673-702, August.
    14. George W. Norton & Jeffrey S. Davis, 1981. "Evaluating Returns to Agricultural Research: A Review," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 63(4), pages 685-699.
    15. Matthew A. Andersen & Wenxing Song, 2013. "The Economic impact of public agricultural research and development in the United States," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 44(3), pages 287-295, May.
    16. Terrance M. Hurley & Xudong Rao & Philip G. Pardey, 2017. "Re-Examining the Reported Rates of Return to Food and Agricultural Research and Development: Reply," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 99(3), pages 827-836.
    17. Kelvin Balcombe & Alastair Bailey & Iain Fraser, 2005. "Measuring the impact of R&D on Productivity from a Econometric Time Series Perspective," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 49-72, September.
    18. Zvi Griliches, 1998. "Issues in Assessing the Contribution of Research and Development to Productivity Growth," NBER Chapters, in: R&D and Productivity: The Econometric Evidence, pages 17-45, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Alejandro Plastina & Lilyan Fulginiti, 2012. "Rates of return to public agricultural research in 48 US states," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 95-113, April.
    20. Wallace E. Huffman & Robert E. Evenson, 2006. "Do Formula or Competitive Grant Funds Have Greater Impacts on State Agricultural Productivity?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 88(4), pages 783-798.
    21. Yu Jin & Wallace E. Huffman, 2016. "Measuring public agricultural research and extension and estimating their impacts on agricultural productivity: new insights from U.S. evidence," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 47(1), pages 15-31, January.
    22. Maredia, Mywish K. & Byerlee, Derek, 2000. "Efficiency of research investments in the presence of international spillovers: wheat research in developing countries," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 1-16, January.
    23. Philip G. Pardey & Barbara Craig, 1989. "Causal Relationships between Public Sector Agricultural Research Expenditures and Output," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 71(1), pages 9-19.
    24. Jock R. Anderson & Robert W. Herdt & Grant M. Scobie, 1985. "The Contribution of International Agricultural Research to World Agriculture," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 67(5), pages 1080-1084.
    25. Caves, Douglas W & Christensen, Laurits R & Diewert, W Erwin, 1982. "Multilateral Comparisons of Output, Input, and Productivity Using Superlative Index Numbers," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 92(365), pages 73-86, March.
    26. Colin Thirtle & Jenifer Piesse & David Schimmelpfennig, 2008. "Modeling the length and shape of the R&D lag: an application to UK agricultural productivity," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 39(1), pages 73-85, July.
    27. Zivot, Eric & Andrews, Donald W K, 2002. "Further Evidence on the Great Crash, the Oil-Price Shock, and the Unit-Root Hypothesis," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 25-44, January.
    28. Adam B. Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg & Rebecca Henderson, 1993. "Geographic Localization of Knowledge Spillovers as Evidenced by Patent Citations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 108(3), pages 577-598.
    29. Caves, Douglas W & Christensen, Laurits R & Diewert, W Erwin, 1982. "The Economic Theory of Index Numbers and the Measurement of Input, Output, and Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1393-1414, November.
    30. D. Schimmelpfennig & C. Thirtle, 1994. "Cointegration, And Causality: Exploring The Relationship Between Agricultural And Productivity," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 220-231, May.
    31. Jones, Charles I, 1995. "R&D-Based Models of Economic Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(4), pages 759-784, August.
    32. Jeffrey S. Davis, 1980. "A note on the use of Alternative lag structures For research expenditure in aggregate production function models," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 28(2), pages 72-76, July.
    33. Lin Qin & Steven T. Buccola, 2017. "Knowledge Measurement and Productivity in a Research Program," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 99(4), pages 932-951.
    34. James Oehmke & David Schimmelpfennig, 2004. "Quantifying Structural Change in U.S. Agriculture: The Case of Research and Productivity," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 297-315, May.
    35. Stock, James H, 1987. "Asymptotic Properties of Least Squares Estimators of Cointegrating Vectors," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(5), pages 1035-1056, September.
    36. My wish K. Maredia & Richard Ward & Derek Byerlee, 1996. "Econometric estimation of a global spillover matrix for wheat varietal technology," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 14(3), pages 159-173, August.
    37. Johansen, Soren, 1995. "Likelihood-Based Inference in Cointegrated Vector Autoregressive Models," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198774501.
    38. Robert Evenson, 1967. "The Contribution of Agricultural Research to Production," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 49(5), pages 1415-1425.
    39. Munisamy Gopinath & Terry Roe, 2000. "R&D Spillovers: Evidence from U.S. Food Processing, Farm Machinery and Agricultural Sectors," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(3), pages 223-244.
    40. James F. Oehmke, 2017. "Re-Examining the Reported Rates of Return to Food and Agricultural Research and Development: Comment," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 99(3), pages 818-826.
    41. Julia Hall & Grant M Scobie, 2006. "The Role of R&D in Productivity Growth: The Case of Agriculture in New Zealand: 1927 to 2001," Treasury Working Paper Series 06/01, New Zealand Treasury.
    42. Terrance M. Hurley & Xudong Rao & Philip G. Pardey, 2014. "Re-examining the Reported Rates of Return to Food and Agricultural Research and Development," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1492-1504.
    43. Terrance M. Hurley & Xudong Rao & Philip G. Pardey, 2017. "Re-Examining the Reported Rates of Return to Food and Agricultural Research and Development: Reply," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 99(3), pages 827-836.
    44. Lilyan E. Fulginiti, 2010. "Estimating Griliches' k-Shifts," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 92(1), pages 86-101.
    45. Diewert, W Erwin, 1978. "Superlative Index Numbers and Consistency in Aggregation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(4), pages 883-900, July.
    46. Beck, Nathaniel & Katz, Jonathan N., 1995. "What To Do (and Not to Do) with Time-Series Cross-Section Data," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(3), pages 634-647, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bouali Guesmi & Juan Hernán Cabas Monje & Marta Alfaro Valenzuela & José M. Gil, 2024. "Impact of public research investments on agricultural productivity in Chile," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(1), pages 277-298, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pardey, Philip G. & Alston, Julian M. & Ruttan, Vernon W., 2010. "The Economics of Innovation and Technical Change in Agriculture," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 939-984, Elsevier.
    2. Alejandro Plastina & Lilyan Fulginiti, 2012. "Rates of return to public agricultural research in 48 US states," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 95-113, April.
    3. Pedro Andres Garzon Delvaux & Heinrich Hockmann & Peter Voigt & Pavel Ciaian & Sergio Gomez y Paloma, 2018. "The impact of private R&D on the performance of food-processing firms: Evidence from Europe, Japan and North America," JRC Research Reports JRC104144, Joint Research Centre.
    4. repec:oup:apecpp:v:40:y:2018:i:3:p:421-444. is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Alston, Julian M. & Pardey, Philip G., 2000. "Reassessing Research Returns: Attribution and Related Problems," 2000 Conference, August 13-18, 2000, Berlin, Germany 197205, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    6. Alston, Julian M. & Pardey, Philip G., 2001. "Attribution and other problems in assessing the returns to agricultural R&D," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 25(2-3), pages 141-152, September.
    7. Xudong Rao & Terrance M. Hurley & Philip G. Pardey, 2020. "Recalibrating the reported returns to agricultural R&D: what if we all heeded Griliches?," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 64(3), pages 977-1001, July.
    8. Bouali Guesmi & Juan Hernán Cabas Monje & Marta Alfaro Valenzuela & José M. Gil, 2024. "Impact of public research investments on agricultural productivity in Chile," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(1), pages 277-298, January.
    9. Jintao Zhan & Yubei Ma & Wuyang Hu & Chao Chen & Qinan Lu, 2022. "Enhancing rural income through public agricultural R&D: Spatial spillover and infrastructure thresholds," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 1083-1107, May.
    10. Alston, Julian M. & Pardey, Philip G. & Ruttan, Vernon W., 2008. "Research Lags Revisited: Concepts and Evidence from U.S. Agriculture," Staff Papers 50091, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    11. Rao, Xudong & Hurley, Terrance M. & Pardey, Philip G., 2020. "Recalibrating the reported returns to agricultural R&D: what if we all heeded Griliches?," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 64(3), July.
    12. Khan, Farid & Salim, Ruhul, 2015. "The Public R&D and Productivity Growth in Australian Broadacre Agriculture: A Cointegration and Causality Approach," 2015 Conference (59th), February 10-13, 2015, Rotorua, New Zealand 204432, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    13. Wang, Shanchao & Alston, Julian M. & Pardey, Philip G., 2023. "R&D Lags in Economic Models," Staff Papers 330085, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    14. Andersen, Matthew A., 2015. "Public investment in U.S. agricultural R&D and the economic benefits," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 38-43.
    15. Stéphane Lemarié & Valérie Orozco & Jean-Pierre Butault & Antonio Musolesi & Michel Simioni & Bertrand Schmitt, 2020. "Assessing the long-term impact of agricultural research on productivity: evidence from France," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 47(4), pages 1559-1586.
    16. Sabasi, Darlington & Shumway, C. Richard, 2014. "Technical Change, Efficiency, and Total Factor Productivity in U.S. Agriculture," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 170225, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    17. Guesmi, Bouali & Gil, Jose Maria, 2017. "Measuring the impact of agricultural research on Catalan agricultural productivity," 2017 International Congress, August 28-September 1, 2017, Parma, Italy 261279, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    18. Alston, Julian M., 2002. "Spillovers," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 46(3), pages 1-32.
    19. Andrea Bonaccorsi & Cinzia Daraio, 2013. "Knowledge spillover effects at the sub-regional level. Theory and estimation," DIAG Technical Reports 2013-13, Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering, Universita' degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza".
    20. Wang, Sun Ling & Ball, V. Eldon & Fulginiti, Lilyan E. & Plastina, Alejandro S., 2012. "Benefits of Public R&D in U.S. Agriculture: Spill-Ins, Extension, and Roads," 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil 126368, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    21. Zoltán J. Ács & Pontus Braunerhjelm & David B. Audretsch & Bo Carlsson, 2015. "The knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship," Chapters, in: Global Entrepreneurship, Institutions and Incentives, chapter 7, pages 129-144, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:aareaj:333769. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaresea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.