The Economics of Agricultural R&D

Abstract

Agricultural research has transformed agriculture and in doing so contributed to the transformation of economies. Economic issues arise because agricultural research is subject to various market fail ures, because the resulting innovations and technological changes have important economic consequences for net income and its distri bution, and because the consequences are difficult to discern and attribute. Economists have developed models and measures of the economic consequences of agricultural R&D and related policies in contributions that relate to a very broad literature ranging across production economics, development economics, industrial organiza tion, economic history, welfare economics, political economy, econo metrics, and so on. A key general finding is that the social rate of return to investments in agricultural R&D has been generally high. Specific findings differ depending on methods and modeling assump tions, particularly assumptions concerning the research lag distribu tion, the nature of the research-induced technological change, and the nature of the markets for the affected commodities.

The effects of climate variability and the color of weather time series on agricultural diseases and pests, and on decisions for their management

“…The best form of management is often use of disease and pest resistant varieties or breeds, where development of a new crop variety typically requires a decade and development of new livestock breeds is much slower; benefits of research may take 40 years to be realized (Alston et al, 2009;Pardey et al, 2006). Where inadequate or no sources of resistance have been found in established crop germplasm, other forms of crop protection are needed to keep pests under control.…”

Research and Development on Optimal Expenditures Evaluation and Prediction: Case Study of Iran's Agricultural Sector

“…That's mean optimal supply would be 8.11 percent more than current supply, if we investigate optimal R&D expenditures level instead of current R&D expenditure then, based on results from Table 1, GARB of current and optimal expenditures could be estimated. Based on the estimated GARB, current and optimal R&D expenditures, and dynamicity effect of GARB shown in Alston et al (2010) and Shahbazi (2012), NPV, B/C and IRR of Current and optimal expenditures has been evaluated for two scenarios of 14 (governmental loan rate) http://www.caves.res.in/ Ambient Science (2016) Vol.-03(Sp.2):p. 08…”

Information networks for disease: commonalities in human management networks and within-host signalling networks

“…Agricultural economists have often used supply and demand models of commodity markets in the analysis of agricultural research impacts, where decreases in the price of commodities and increases in consumption are one measure of success (Alston et al 2009). Evaluation of benefits for producers is another element.…”

“…Evaluation of benefits for producers is another element. Attributing the source of improvements is a problem because of the frequently long time-lag between research effort and benefit, as is dealing with 'spillover' benefits for systems that were not the original targets of the research (Alston et al 2009). Ekboir (2003) argued that research impacts should be analyzed by treating the link between research and adoption of new products of research as a complex adaptive system.…”