Public Investment and Industry Incentives in Life-Science Research

Life-science research has shifted rapidly from the public to the private sector, raising questions about government's remaining role. We shed light on the issue by employing a dynamic investment-response model to examine the public's impact on industry life-science research effort and success. We find that government expenditures in both basic biological research and agricultural and medical science create substantial spillovers for private firms. The spillovers are, unfortunately, partly nullified by government competition for scarce research inputs. Yet even after accounting for such competition, public investment has been strongly complementary to private investment. Indeed, opportunities created through public research are the principal source of growth in industry life sciences.     

Wage and employment effects of Malawi's fertilizer subsidy program

This article uses three waves of nationally representative household‐level panel data from Malawi to estimate how a large‐scale fertilizer subsidy program impacts the agricultural labor market, known as ganyu in that country. I find that when looking across the entire population of smallholders, receiving an additional 100 kg of subsidized fertilizer causes the average household to supply about three fewer days of ganyu. The fertilizer subsidy program also has a small positive effect on the probability that a household demands agricultural labor, with the results approaching statistical significance. In addition, a 10 kg increase in the average amount of subsidized fertilizer acquired per household in a community boosts the median agricultural wage rate by 1.4% in that community. The increase in wage rates translates to a US $1.40 per year increase in average household income in the years after Malawi's subsidy program was scaled up, and a US $1.86 per year increase in average household income for those who sold their labor before the subsidy program was scaled up. This finding suggests that households who sell their labor off farm may experience some small spillover benefit from the program in the form of higher agricultural wage rates.     

Setting Efficient Incentives for Agricultural Research: Lessons from Principal-Agent Theory

A conceptual analysis of important issues in the organization and management of academic research is presented. Principal-agent theory is applied to derive optimal compensation schemes for scientists when they differ in ability, risk aversion, cost of effort, and reservation utility, and to show the optimal trade-off between institutional risk and scientists' abilities. Implications for an efficient organization of research are derived, including how scientists' incentives should be structured to elicit optimal research efforts and direction, whether research direction should be centralized or decentralized, and whether the organization of research should be through external competitive grants or program and institutional funding.     

Effects of media headlines on consumer preferences for food safety,quality and environmental attributes

In recent years, Asia has emerged as an important supplier of food to Western countries. In this study, we focus on shrimp, a major aquaculture commodity, to evaluate consumer willingness‐to‐pay (WTP) for enhanced food safety, use of antibiotics and eco‐friendly practices used in producing shrimp in the presence of country‐of‐origin labelling. Specifically, this research assesses the effects of news headlines regarding product safety, as information shocks on U.S. consumer demand. Consumers were found to have a mean willingness‐to‐pay of $7.81 per pound of shrimp with an enhanced safety characteristic from the United States, $0.94 for the same type of shrimp from China and $2.43 for similar shrimp from Thailand. Consumers had a WTP for the absence of antibiotics in the production of U.S. shrimp of $7.31 and were only willing to pay for an eco‐friendly attribute on domestically produced shrimp. Media headlines were found to have a statistically significant effect on consumer preferences and WTP for product characteristics. Food policy and international agribusiness implications of our findings are discussed.     

Preference Heterogeneity and Habit Persistence: The Case of Breakfast Cereal Consumption

The efficiency of information, price campaigns and economic incentive policies related to food depend on the degree of habit persistence in food consumption. This paper estimates the strength of state dependence associated with breakfast cereal consumption and its heterogeneity across households, where positive state dependence implies habit persistence and negative state dependence implies variety seeking in consumption. The analysis uses a detailed micro‐level dataset from the research institute GfK Sweden on household breakfast cereal consumption in 2003. The analysis relies on a mixed multinomial logit model and finds breakfast cereal consumption is generally highly habitual. The degree of habit persistence, however, exhibits heterogeneity across households. In addition, some households can be characterised as variety seeking. The strength of habit persistence is similar across income and educational groups. The strength of habit persistence seems to be weaker for households with several adults and children compared with one‐adult households.     

An Economic Evaluation of Public Wheat Research and Extension Expenditures in Canada*

The widespread commitment of public funds to agricultural research is being questioned by administrators in governments and by the Canadian public. Questions relating to the level of public expenditure on agricultural research, the efficiency with which the resources are being allocated, and the manner in which the benefits are distributed among members of society art being asked. This study addresses these and related questions as they pertain to publicly funded wheat research activities conducted over the period 1946 to 1979- Two research scenarios were examined - one dealing with the development of new varieties of wheat and the other dealing with all research applicable to the production of wheat. The results revealed that society has indeed benefitted substantially from public investment in wheat research. The level of social benefits averaged $49 and $143 million (measured in 1971 dollars) annually for the wheat breeding and all-wheat research scenarios, respectively. The average annual internal rates of return earned from these public investments ranged between 30 and 39 percent. Furthermore, some evidence was presented that suggests society may, in fact, be underin-vesting in agricultural research in the aggregate. Finally, analyses of the distribution of the benefits showed that both producers and consumers are major beneficiaries.     

Peanut Research and Poverty Reduction: Impacts of Variety Improvement to Control Peanut Viruses in Uganda

A procedure is developed and applied for predicting ex ante impacts of agricultural research on aggregate poverty, using as an example the poverty-reducing impact of peanut research in Uganda. Market-level information on economic surplus changes is combined with a procedure for allocating income changes to individual households. Characteristics of farmers that affect their likelihood of technology adoption are used to create a technology adoption profile. Associated changes in poverty resulting from adoption are computed using poverty indices. Predicted income changes at the household level are aggregated to the market level and reconciled with calculations of economic surplus changes.     

An Analysis of Public Agricultural Research in the Canadian Prairie Provinces

This study has developed a four-equation model of agricultural research in Canada using some aspects of special interest theory, institutional theory and economic variables. The demand, supply and allocation equations were developed with special reference to the Canadian agricultural research sector and the more restrictive prairie agricultural research sector. The conceptual model developed is designed to explain the allocation of public expenditures on commodity specific applied research. The reduced-form equation of the model was estimated for 6 commodity classes (2 crops, 4 livestock groups) to test the applicability of the model over the commodity groups.
The evaluation of the reduced-form equation model and the implications that derive from it give an interesting view of the Canadian research sector. Some variables did perform as a priori expected with relative consistency and certain equations performed very well. These results lead to some implications for the Canadian agricultural research sector.
The general performance of the reduced-form equation and its ability to explain the total variation of expenditures on commodity specific agricultural research gives limited support to the model developed. Nevertheless the results tend to indicate that agricultural research is responsive to economic and institutional variables.     

农户行为层面生态环境问题研究进展与述评

采用文献回顾法和归纳法,从研究内容、研究视角、研究区域、研究方法和手段、数据获取等方面对农户层面生态环境问题的相关研究进行梳理与分析,最后总结了现有研究存在的问题,并探讨了未来农户层面生态环境问题研究发展的方向。主要结论如下:(1)研究内容涉及农户行为引起的农业环境问题类型、农户行为的生态环境效应、农户环境保护行为与生态建设行为、农业环境保护政策创新等方面;(2)研究视角主要包括以农业生产行为决策者农户为中心内生视角和以农户需求与以农户行为为出发点的外部视角,研究区域主要集中在经济发达地区;(3)在研究方法方面,早期主要是采用一般描述、定性分析和"事前"估计法,近年来"事后"计量模型的研究逐步增多,趋于多样化和综合性;(4)数据获取主要是农户问卷调查和参与式农村评估方法;(5)今后研究应加强农户行为对环境影响的定量评价与跟踪研究、农户环境保护响应决策机制、基于农户行为的环境政策设计等方面的研究,在数据获取方面,应将地理空间信息与问卷调查、社会经济状况结合起来,并进行农户行为与生态环境变化的长期跟踪。     

Public Research Policy for Today's Agricultural Biotech Research Industry

While the public sector has historically played a very significant role in the direct provision of agricultural research, the appropriate role of government in the future is no longer apparent in a world with intellectual property rights (IPRs) and a concentrated privatized biotech research industry. This study develops a search/imperfect competition framework to examine the public role. The analysis shows that private firms have inadequate incentives to invest in research for varietal improvement relative to the social optimum even with completely enforceable IPRs. A government subsidy on research output can efficiently increase the amount of applied research to the socially optimal point. Government subsidy of the research cost can have the same effect on research and development expenditure. Expanding direct applied public research increases social welfare but cannot achieve a social optimum, as it reduces the already limited incentives for private firms to invest. Finally, in situations where basic research is underprovided, government should address these market failures as part of an optimal research policy. Overall, the analysis suggests that there is a role for public support of applied research, but this role is no longer direct public involvement in applied research where IPRs are well established.     

Valuing Food Store Access: Policy Implications for the Food Stamp Program

Food stamp recipients may lack access to larger stores, reducing the availability of nutritious food. Reliance on smaller stores may have undesirable impacts. Policy alternatives include limiting food stamp redemption to larger stores and subsidizing store development. I estimate that limiting redemption to supermarkets and grocery stores, or supermarkets alone, results in losses ranging from $499.2 million to $1.05 billion, or $1.17 billion to $2.44 billion (respectively) annual loss in food stamp recipient welfare nationwide. The impact of improving access is also significant, ranging from $333.6 million to $931.2 million.     

Can environmental attributes influence protected area designation? A case study valuing preferences for springs in Grand Canyon National Park

Springs in Grand Canyon National Park (GRCA) provide water to over 6 million visitors per year. In addition to use value for visitors, springs have cultural value to indigenous peoples and provide critical habitat for plants and animals. Finally, base flow to the Colorado River is dependent upon springs and they also provide an important water source for backcountry recreation. Climate change, uranium mining, and increased groundwater pumping threaten the continued viability of Grand Canyon springs. Springs protection is at the forefront of proposed national policy to protect the area of the aquifers contributing to springs of the Grand Canyon outside of the designated boundaries of the national park. To date very little research on the non-market values of springs has been conducted, and no research has estimated non-market values of springs within Grand Canyon National Park using a Choice Experiment (CE). We conduct a nationwide online Choice Experiment to determine willingness to pay (WTP) to protect backcountry springs and attributes including; accessibility, suitability as a back country water source, suitability as habitat for species of concern, aesthetics, and significance to Indigenous Nations. We estimate a Bayesian mixed logit, and find an average willingness to pay of $32.60 per household for a spring with the presence of all five attributes. The habitat attribute produces the highest WTP of $14.80. We find WTP of $4.50 for springs with cultural significance. Results from our study could be instrumental in designation of the Grand Canyon National Heritage Monument. In addition, our results indicate that careful consideration of watershed services on public lands is essential for efficient decision-making regarding protection of public lands.     

边疆民族地区牧户贫困脆弱性及其影响因素研究

[目的]为清晰识别边疆民族地区牧户贫困程度,为后续精准扶贫政策及牧户的可持续发展提供科学的决策依据。[方法]文章以边疆民族地区牧户为研究对象,分别以1.25美元、2美元和2300元为贫困线标准,运用VEP估计方法对牧户贫困脆弱性进行测度,并以户主特征、家庭特征、畜牧业生产行为与草原生态政策选择行为4个层面综合构建牧户贫困脆弱性影响的Logit计量模型。[结果]牧户贫困发生率与贫困脆弱性发生率为4.07%和63.47%,其中贫困和非贫困牧户的贫困脆弱性分别为96.88%和62.06%。户主年龄、家庭规模以及绵羊、牛、奶牛、马和山羊的出栏数量与家庭贫困脆弱性呈现反向显著关系,而教育程度、家庭劳动力数量、出栏羊单位与家庭贫困脆弱性呈现显著正向关系,选择禁牧与草畜平衡牧户的贫困脆弱性更低。[结论]降低以中青年为主的牧户的畜牧业风险,构建中小牧户链接到现代农牧业发展的体制机制与政策体系,鼓励牲畜种类多样化以及持续实施禁牧和草畜平衡的生态政策,是降低牧户贫困脆弱性与提升可行能力的重要路径。     

Welfare Impacts of Cross-Country Spillovers in Agricultural Research

The welfare implications of intellectual property protection (IPP) for private sector agricultural research are analyzed, focusing on the realistic cases where countries provide different IPP levels, technology spills over across countries, and the public sector is involved in research. A model is developed to determine who benefits from, and who should pay for, the associated research. The article contains some interesting results on the implications of a harmonization of IPP policies through multilateral agreements or via technology that allows research firms to prevent the copying of plants and animals that express traits that have emerged from their research.     

Evaluating willingness to pay for the temporal distribution of different air quality improvements: Is China's clean air target adequate to ensure welfare maximization?

Stated preference analyses seeking to determine the public's value for air quality improvements often estimate willingness to pay (WTP) for days at a specified minimum quality threshold (e.g., days with clean air), but do not consider the temporal distribution of pollution levels below this threshold. This paper develops a choice experiment designed to evaluate WTP for a more complete distribution of air quality improvements, including the number of days per year at multiple air quality levels. The model is applied to a case study of air quality improvement in the core districts of Xi'an City, China. Results from a linearly constrained mixed logit model demonstrate that average household WTP for improving a lightly polluted, moderately polluted, heavily polluted, or severely polluted day to a clean air day is 7.42, 8.90, 13.06, and 24.28 RMB per year, respectively. These results show that WTP depends not only on the total number of clean air days, but on the total distribution of pollution levels across all days of the year. Results are directly relevant to the development of clean air policies in China, for which benefit estimates are currently unavailable.     

Consumer-Defined Attributes and Choice Methods for Fresh Produce Purchases in Australia

The aim of this research is to identify ways of increasing sales by understanding how household food buyers choose fresh produce items. Three hundred responses were obtained from a questionnaire randomly distributed in one city in Australia. Fresh produce items are frequent, low-value purchases. Their most important attributes are taste, price, and freshness, and the buyer choice method used for individual products varies from occasional “impulse” purchases to regular “planned” purchases of staples. With planned purchases some are seen as “destination” products whereas for others “substitutes” are available. In order to optimize sales, retail outlets should avoid becoming out-of-stock for destination products and co-locate substitute products. Sales may also be increased by displaying impulse products in prominent positions.     

Understanding Differences in Self-Reported Expenditures between Household Scanner Data and Diary Survey Data: A Comparison of Homescan and Consumer Expenditure Survey

Household scanner data contain rich information on household demographics and transactions in actual markets over a long time period. To more fully understand the characteristics of these data, we conducted an analysis to determine whether household expenditures in the Nielsen Homescan panel are similar to the Bureau of Labor Statistic's Consumer Expenditure Diary Survey. We found that many differences in reported expenditures across the two datasets can be explained by such household demographics as female head, income, and household size, for example. The largest degrees of discrepancies across datasets occur for food categories containing more random-weight foods without universal product codes.     

A Hedonic Analysis of Fresh Tomato Prices among Regional Markets

This study uses the 2004 ACNielsen Homescan panel data to estimate the price premiums and discounts associated with fresh tomatoes among regional markets, focusing on the organic attribute. The results suggest that consumers paid $0.25/lb more for organic fresh tomatoes in the New York–Philadelphia market. The organic premiums are estimated to be $0.14/lb in the Chicago–Baltimore/Washington and Los Angeles–San Francisco markets and $0.29/lb in the Atlanta–San Antonio market. Furthermore, tomato prices consumers paid in 2004 varied by household characteristics, including income, age, and the race and ethnicity of the head of the household.     

浅析科研机构科研项目管理工作

我国提出实施创新驱动发展战略以来,科研事业的发展势头良好,科研项目管理也成为科技创新的一项重要工作内容。本文阐述了科研项目管理工作的概念及重要性,分析了科研项目管理工作对科研项目管理人员以及科研机构的要求,指出了科研项目管理工作中存在的问题,并给出了若干建议。     

Value of Household and Farm Work: Evidence from Alberta Farm Family Data

Estimates of the economic value of unpaid household and farm work of Alberta farm women and men are calculated using two common market alternative cost methods. Time use data for 1984 collected by Doherty and Keating (1985) from 414 Alberta grain farm families as well as Statistics Canada wage data are used. The average annual value of unpaid farm work ranges from $20,647.35 to $29,088.24 for men and from $5,017.54 to $6,604.19 for women. Conversely, unpaid household work performed by women has an average annual value of $17,460.98 to $34,617.66, while the value of men's unpaid household work ranges from $1,943.02 to $3,962.54 annually. When the values of farm and household production and the income generated by off-farm work are accounted for, there is little difference between mend's and womend's total contributions to the economic well-being of the farm family. These estimates illustrate the importance of family membersd' unpaid work to the economic well-being of the family. They also suggest that there is little basis for the historic inequity of legal and other social systems that neglect the economic value of womend's contributions to family welfare. On estime la valeur du travail domestique et agricole non rémunéré des agricultrices et des agriculteurs de l'Alberta au moyen de deux autres méthodes de calcul des coûts, dd'usage courant sur le marché. On se sert pour cela des données de 1984 sur le temps recueillies par Keating and Doherty (1985) auprès de 414 producteurs de céréales de l'Alberta et des données sur les salaires de Statistique Canada. La valeur annuelle moyenne du travail agricole non rémunéré varie de 20 647,35 $ à 29 088,24 $ pour les hommes et de 5 017,54 $ à 6 604,19 $ pour les femmes. Parallèlement, le travail domestique non rémunéré effectuÉ par les femmes vaut de 17 460,98 $ à 34 617,66 $ en moyenne par année, tandis que pour les hommes il varie entre 1 943,02 $ et 3 962,54 $. Lorsqud'on additionne la valeur de la production agricole et domestique et le revenu générÉ par le travail non agricole, on constate qud'il y a peu dd'écart entre la contribution totale de l'homme et celle de la femme au bien-être économique de la famille rurale. Ces estimations prouvent 1d'importance du travail non rémunéré des membres de la famille pour la situation économique de cette derniÈre. Elles suggèrent également qud'il nd'existe pas de véritable fondement à l'injustice historique introduite par les systèmes juridiques et sociaux qui négligent la valeur de la contribution des femmes au bien-être économique de la famille.