Replaced with revised version of paper 01/30/06.

Scholarly societies in economics (and many other professions) are clubs that provide members with a range of club goods, many of which have broader and economically significant spillover consequences for society at large. Yet surprisingly little is known about the historical evolution or current...

A common observation is that measures of productivity growth are pro-cyclical, meaning they are higher (or grow faster) on average during periods of economic expansion than during periods of economic contraction. This study focuses on measurement errors related to capital inputs as an...

Econometric studies of the effects of research on productivity have typically imposed arbitrary restrictions on the length and shape of the R&D on productivity and the estimated rate of return to research. This paper argues that the useful stock of public knowledge depreciates, if at all, only...

Transgenic crops are relatively new technologies being adopted rapidly in the United States and in a few other countries. The economic impacts of these technologies have, thus far, been estimated in a piecemeal fashion. The purpose of this study was to collect and characterize the economic...

Agricultural research has transformed agriculture and in doing so contributed to the transformation of economies. Economic issues arise because agricultural research is subject to various market failures, because the resulting innovations and technological changes have important economic...

Some hypotheses about the timing of farmers becoming aware of an innovation and the subsequent decision to use that innovation are derived from a recently developed, decision-theoretic model of the adoption process. They are tested using empirical evidence on the time taken by early adopters of...

Notwithstanding the ambiguous research and productivity promoting effects of plant varietyprotections (PVPs), even in developed countries, many developing countries have adoptedPVPs in the past few years to comply with their Trade-Related Aspects of IntellectualProperty Rights (TRIPS)...

Notwithstanding the ambiguous research and productivity promoting effects of plant variety protections (PVPs), even in developed countries, many developing countries have adopted PVPs in the past few years to comply with their Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)...

Commodity levies are used increasingly to fund producer collective goods such as research and promotion. In the present paper we examine theoretical relationships between producer and national benefits from levy‐funded research, and consider the implications for the appropriate rates of...