Slow Magic: Agricultural Versus Industrial R&D Lag Models

Julian Alston, Philip G. Pardey, Devin Serfas and Shanchao Wang
Additional contact information
Philip G. Pardey: Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
Devin Serfas: Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Davis, California, USA
Shanchao Wang: Meta, Seattle, Washington, USA

Annual Review of Resource Economics, 2023, vol. 15, issue 1, 471-493

Abstract: R&D is slow magic. It takes many years before research investments begin to affect productivity, but then they can affect productivity for a long time. Many economists get this wrong. Here, we revisit the conceptual foundations for R&D lag models used to represent the temporal links between research investments and impact, review prevalent practice, and document and discuss a range of evidence on R&D lags in agriculture and other industries. Our theory and evidence consistently support the use of longer lags with a different overall lag profile than is typically imposed in studies of industrial R&D and government compilations of R&D knowledge stocks. Many studies systematically fail to recognize the many years of investment and effort typically required to create a new technology and bring it to market and the subsequent years as the technology is diffused and adopted. Consequential distortions in the measures and economic understanding are implied.

Keywords: knowledge stocks and flows; industrial and agricultural sectors; R&D; adoption; technological change; innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L10 O31 Q16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-resource-111820-034312
Full text downloads are only available to subscribers. Visit the abstract page for more information.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:anr:reseco:v:15:y:2023:p:471-493

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.annualreviews.org/action/ecommerce

DOI: 10.1146/annurev-resource-111820-034312

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Annual Review of Resource Economics from Annual Reviews Annual Reviews 4139 El Camino Way Palo Alto, CA 94306, USA.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by http://www.annualreviews.org ().