Research returns redux: a meta-analysis of the returns to agricultural R&D

A total of 289 studies of returns to agricultural R&D were compiled and these provide 1821 estimates of rates of return. After removing statistical outliers and incomplete observations, across the remaining 1128 observations the estimated annual rates of return averaged 65 per cent overall — 80 per cent for research only, 80 per cent for extension only, and 47 per cent for research and extension combined. These averages reveal little meaningful information from a large body of literature, which provides rate-of-return estimates that are often not directly comparable. This study was aimed at trying to account for the differences. Several features of the methods used by research evaluators matter, in particular assumptions about lag lengths and the nature of the research-induced supply shift.     

Generic advertising without supply control: implications of funding mechanisms for advertising intensities in competitive industries

Producer profit-maximising rules for generic commodity advertising programs and associated funding levies are derived. Lump-sum, per unit and ad valorem levies, and government subsidy funding arrangements are compared and contrasted. The initial single-product competitive market model is extended to incorporate international trade, government price policies, and multiple commodity interactions.     

Quota Reforms in Australian Agriculture

This short paper reviews the Australian experience in reforming quotas on fluid milk, tobacco and laying hens. In these industries, quotas in at least some Australian states have been eliminated, but in every case the transition has entailed substantial compensation to at least some of the producers affected adversely by the change and the new policy has not always been afree market. Notably, the states having the greatest comparative advantage within Australia were the first to eliminate quotas on laying hens and fluid milk.
L'auteur passe brièvement en revue l'expérience australienne dans les processus de réforme des contingents sur le lait de consommation, sur le tabac et sur les poules de ponte. Dans ces secteurs, les contingents ont étééliminés dans au mains quelques États, mais au prix de compensations substantielles versées à un certain nombre de producteurs que les changements avaient mis en mauvaise posture et le nouveau régime n'a pas toujours fonctionné en marché libre. Il est remarquable de noter que les États australiens jouissant de plus grands avantages comparatifs par rapport aux autres ont été les premiers àéliminer le contingentement des poulaillers de ponte et du lait de consommation.     

Internal Relative Price Stationarity in Long-Run Purchasing Power Parity

This study demonstrates that the joint relationship among domestic traded-goods prices, dometic nontraded-goods prices, foreign traded-goods prices, and foreign nontraded-goods prices is important to understanding rejections or confirmations of long-run PPP. This joint relationship is defined as the "cross-country internal relative price structure." For nine of the ten pairs of countries studied, the cross-country internal relative price structure is found to be stationary; thus, factors other than the influence of nontraded-goods prices must be responsible for the rejections of long-run PPP.     

An Evaluation of California's Mandated Commodity Promotion Programs

This article provides an overview of mandated commodity programs in California, and summarizes and interprets existing evidence on their economic impacts. The analysis draws upon the recent book edited by the authors: The Economics of Commodity Promotion Programs: Lessons from California . New York: Peter Lang Publishing, April 2005. The book documents the institutional arrangements, summarizes the history of recent litigation, and presents the results of a number of benefit–cost studies of mandated commodity programs in California. The overwhelming conclusion from the studies reported in the article is that the programs have been very profitable for California's agricultural producers.     

Post-War Productivity Patterns in U.S. Agriculture: Influences of Aggregation Procedures in a State-Level Analysis

Annual data for forty-eight states are used to account for changes in the composition of input and output aggregates over space and time, and thereby to obtain new evidence on changes in inputs, outputs, and productivity in U.S. agriculture. The measures change significantly when we use state-specific rather than national prices and when we allow for changes in the composition of the aggregates, especially of labor and capital inputs. We compare our estimates and those reported by Ball et al. ( American Journal of Agricultural Economics 81(1999):164–79). The national estimates are similar but substantial differences are found in state-level productivity growth.     

THE IMPACT OF FARM AND PROCESSING RESEARCH ON THE AUSTRALIAN WOOL INDUSTRY*

An equilibrium displacement model of the world wool top industry is used to estimate the returns to the Australian wool industry from productivity improvements in farm production, in top making and in textile manufacturing. The returns to the industry from these different types of research and development are sensitive to the extent of substitution possibilities between Australian wool and other inputs used by the wool processing and textile industries but it appears that research resources have to be much more efficient in off-farm activities for the Australian wool industry to receive benefits similar to those from farm research activities.