The Economic Returns to U.S. Public Agricultural Research

Julian Alston, Matthew A. Andersen, Jennifer S. James and Philip Pardey

No 95522, Staff Papers from University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics

Abstract: We use newly constructed state-specific data to explore the implications of common modeling choices for measures of research returns. Our results indicate that state-to-state spillover effects are important, that the R&D lag is longer than many studies have allowed, and that misspecification can give rise to significant biases. Across states, the average of the own-state benefit-cost ratios is 21:1; or 32:1 when the spillover benefits to other states are included. These ratios correspond to real internal rates of return of 9 or 10 percent per annum, much smaller than those typically reported in the literature, partly because we have corrected for a methodological flaw in computing rates of return.

Keywords: Research; and; Development/Tech; Change/Emerging; Technologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46
Date: 2011-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-eff and nep-ino
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (43)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/95522/files/St ... -8--InSTePP10-04.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Economic Returns to U.S. Public Agricultural Research (2011)
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:ags:umaesp:95522

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.95522

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Staff Papers from University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().