Valuing Pre-Commercial Genetic Resources: A Maximum Entropy Approach |
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Authors: | Armineh Zohrabian Greg Traxler Steven Caudill Melinda Smale |
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Affiliation: | Armineh Zohrabian is prevention effectiveness fellow at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;;Greg Traxler is professor, Department of Agricultural Economics, Auburn University;;Steven Caudill is professor, Economics Department, Auburn University;and;Melinda Smale is economist, International Plant Genetic Resources Institute. |
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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. |
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Keywords: | germplasm maximum entropy search theoretic framework soybean valuation |
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