IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/agecon/v52y2021i2p317-328.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Agricultural R&D investment intensity: A misleading conventional measure and a new intensity index

Author

Listed:
  • Alejandro Nin‐Pratt

Abstract

The conventional wisdom that developing countries are significantly underinvesting in agricultural research and development (R&D) has been challenged by studies that found that the high rates of return in the literature result from data limitations and inadequate modeling choices. However, evidence of low research effort in developing countries as measured by the intensity ratio (IR)—the percentage of agricultural gross domestic product invested in agricultural R&D—has not been questioned. This article argues that the IR is an inadequate indicator of research effort and proposes an alternative index to measure R&D intensity. Using the proposed index, we find that the investment effort in developing countries is much higher than the one observed when the IR is used, that the contribution of low‐ and middle‐income (LMI) countries to growth in global R&D intensity was higher to that of high‐income (HI) countries in recent years, that the investment gap in LMI countries is close to 50% of R&D investment, and that the proposed development goal of a 1.0% value of the IR is beyond the possibilities of most Asian and African countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Alejandro Nin‐Pratt, 2021. "Agricultural R&D investment intensity: A misleading conventional measure and a new intensity index," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 52(2), pages 317-328, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:agecon:v:52:y:2021:i:2:p:317-328
    DOI: 10.1111/agec.12620
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/agec.12620
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/agec.12620?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. 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.
    2. Rachel Griffith & Stephen Redding & John Van Reenen, 2004. "Mapping the Two Faces of R&D: Productivity Growth in a Panel of OECD Industries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(4), pages 883-895, November.
    3. Uris Lantz C. Baldos & Keith O. Fuglie & Thomas W. Hertel, 2020. "The research cost of adapting agriculture to climate change: A global analysis to 2050," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 51(2), pages 207-220, March.
    4. repec:oup:apecpp:v:40:y:2018:i:3:p:421-444. is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Uris Lantz C Baldos & Frederi G Viens & Thomas W Hertel & Keith O Fuglie, 2019. "R&D Spending, Knowledge Capital, and Agricultural Productivity Growth: A Bayesian Approach," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 101(1), pages 291-310.
    6. Jonathan Eaton & Eva Gutierrez & Samuel Kortum, 1998. "European technology policy," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 13(27), pages 404-438.
    7. Shenggen Fan, 2000. "Research Investment and the Economic Returns To Chinese Agricultural Research," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 163-182, September.
    8. Mason-D'Croz, Daniel & Sulser, Timothy B. & Wiebe, Keith & Rosegrant, Mark W. & Lowder, Sarah K. & Nin-Pratt, Alejandro & Willenbockel, Dirk & Robinson, Sherman & Zhu, Tingju & Cenacchi, Nicola & Duns, 2019. "Agricultural investments and hunger in Africa modeling potential contributions to SDG2 – Zero Hunger," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 38-53.
    9. Lederman, Daniel & Maloney, William F., 2003. "Research and development (R&D) and development," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3024, The World Bank.
    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. Stern, Nicholas & Lankes, Hans Peter & Macquarie, Rob & Soubeyran, Éléonore, 2024. "The relationship between climate action and poverty reduction," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121231, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Ahmad Bathaei & Dalia Štreimikienė, 2023. "A Systematic Review of Agricultural Sustainability Indicators," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-19, January.
    3. Mirela Stoian & Raluca Andreea Ion & Vlad Constantin Turcea & Ionut Catalin Nica & Catalin Gheorghe Zemeleaga, 2022. "The Influence of Governmental Agricultural R&D Expenditure on Farmers’ Income—Disparities between EU Member States," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-14, August.
    4. Deng, Haiyan & Jin, Yanhong & Pray, Carl & Hu, Ruifa & Xia, Enjun & Meng, Hong, 2021. "Impact of public research and development and extension on agricultural productivity in China from 1990 to 2013," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    5. Lachaud, Michée A. & Bravo-Ureta, Boris E., 2022. "A Bayesian statistical analysis of return to agricultural R&D investment in Latin America: Implications for food security," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).

    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. Nin-Pratt, Alejandro, 2016. "Comparing apples to apples: A new indicator of research and development investment intensity in agriculture:," IFPRI discussion papers 1559, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    2. Lachaud, Michée A. & Bravo-Ureta, Boris E., 2022. "A Bayesian statistical analysis of return to agricultural R&D investment in Latin America: Implications for food security," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    3. Rachel Griffith & Stephen Redding & John Van Reenen, 2001. "Measuring the cost-effectiveness of an R&D tax credit for the UK," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 375-399, September.
    4. Crespi, Gustavo & Zuniga, Pluvia, 2012. "Innovation and Productivity: Evidence from Six Latin American Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 273-290.
    5. Koski, Heli, 2012. "The Role of Data and Knowledge in Firms Service and Product Innovation," Discussion Papers 1272, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    6. repec:oup:apecpp:v:40:y:2018:i:3:p:421-444. is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Nin-Pratt, Alejandro & Falconi, César A., 2018. "The agricultural R&D investment gap in Latin America and the Caribbean," IFPRI discussion papers 1749, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    8. Wolfgang Keller, 2004. "International Technology Diffusion," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(3), pages 752-782, September.
    9. Youngjune Kim & Ji Yong Lee, 2020. "Effects of Government Payments on Agricultural Productivity: The Case of South Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-11, April.
    10. Sulser, Timothy & Wiebe, Keith D. & Dunston, Shahnila & Cenacchi, Nicola & Nin-Pratt, Alejandro & Mason-D’Croz, Daniel & Robertson, Richard D. & Willenbockel, Dirk & Rosegrant, Mark W., 2021. "Climate change and hunger: Estimating costs of adaptation in the agrifood system," Food policy reports 9780896294165, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    11. Sansi Yang & C. Richard Shumway, 2020. "Knowledge accumulation in US agriculture: research and learning by doing," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 87-105, December.
    12. Tziogkidis, Panagiotis & Philippas, Dionisis & Leontitsis, Alexandros & Sickles, Robin C., 2020. "A data envelopment analysis and local partial least squares approach for identifying the optimal innovation policy direction," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 285(3), pages 1011-1024.
    13. Arita, Shawn & Cooper, Joseph C. & Gerlt, Scott & Meyer, Seth D. & Thompson, Wyatt & Westhoff, Patrick, 2021. "Agricultural Supply Response under Extreme Market Events and Policy Shocks," 2021 Annual Meeting, August 1-3, Austin, Texas 313930, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    14. Thompson, Wyatt & Dewbre, Joe & Pieralli, Simone & Schroeder, Kateryna & Pérez Domínguez, Ignacio & Westhoff, Patrick, 2019. "Long-term crop productivity response and its interaction with cereal markets and energy prices," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 1-9.
    15. Krammer, Sorin M.S., 2009. "Drivers of national innovation in transition: Evidence from a panel of Eastern European countries," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 845-860, June.
    16. Peter Mayerhofer, 2022. "Vorarlbergs Wirtschaft im europäischen Konkurrenzumfeld. Bericht zur internationalen Wettbewerbsfähigkeit 2022," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 69424, February.
    17. Schulte, Patrick, 2015. "Does skill-biased technical change diffuse internationally?," ZEW Discussion Papers 15-088, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    18. Lederman, Daniel & Saenz, Laura, 2005. "Innovation and development around the world, 1960-2000," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3774, The World Bank.
    19. Marina Rybalka, 2015. "The innovative input mix. Assessing the importance of R&D and ICT investments for firm performance in manufacturing and services," Discussion Papers 801, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    20. Grunfeld, Leo A., 2003. "Meet me halfway but don't rush: absorptive capacity and strategic R&D investment revisited," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(8), pages 1091-1109, October.
    21. Chen, Shiu-Sheng, 2017. "Exchange rate undervaluation and R&D activity," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 148-160.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:bla:agecon:v:52:y:2021:i:2:p:317-328. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iaaeeea.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.