Valuing Pre-Commercial Genetic Resources: A Maximum Entropy Approach

Armineh Zohrabian, Greg Traxler (), Steven B Caudill and Melinda Smale ()

American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 2003, vol. 85, issue 2, 429-436

Abstract: Genetic improvement has been a major contributor to agricultural productivity in the United States, but many questions about the economics of crop breeding, such as the value of pre-commercial germplasm, remain unanswered. This study estimates the marginal value of poorly characterized materials contained in the U.S. national germplasm system. Within the search theoretic framework, we apply a maximum entropy method to estimate the probability and the expected level of improvement in pest susceptibility relative to its best previously observed level. The results indicate that the lower-bound estimate of benefit is significantly higher than the upper-bound cost of conserving an accession. Copyright 2003, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2003
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:ajagec:v:85:y:2003:i:2:p:429-436

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