A COMPARISON OF PROCEDURES FOR ESTIMATING RETURNS TO RESEARCH USING PRODUCTION FUNCTIONS

The production function approach has been one of the two main ex-post procedures used to estimate the rate of return to agricultural research. A critical part of estimating the marginal internal rate of return (MIRR) is the procedure adopted to spread the benefits of research through time. Past studies using this approach have given only brief consideration to this computational procedure. The objective in this study was to review the different computational procedures used and, then, using cross-section production function estimates for U.S. agriculture, determine whether the MIRR estimates are sensitive to the computational procedure used. The results from this comparison indicate a large range in the estimates. The implication, then, is that careful consideration should be given to the choice of computational procedure, both when undertaking such a study and when comparing the results of different studies.