We use panel data for nine industries to evaluate research and development (R&D) investments in New Zealand over the past forty years. We estimate the impact of R&D stocks in a particular industry on output per person in that industry and on output per person in the rest of the economy. We...

This paper updates the results of an earlier paper (Johnson 1996) exploring productivity trends 1972-92 prepared for the OECD. Tornqvist indexes are used to compensate for changes in the mix of outputs and inputs. Capital is charged at service prices. Present indications are that labour and...

As with most agricultural products in world trade, trade in meat products is restricted by a variety of non-tariff barriers in different countries. In the case of New Zealand meat products there are quota restrictions in the USA, Canada, and EU markets and hygiene regulations of varying...

There has developed in recent years some concern about the effectiveness of government policy, especially concerning its implementation and the agencies responsible for it. Institutional economics and transaction cost economics provide a number of pointers to the evaluation of past policy aims...

The agricultural sector tends to get a bad press and low priority from NZ Treasury due to the falling share of GDP. On the other hand, the agricultural sector in NZ shows up highest in the OECD total factor productivity studies! Is not the efficient use of resources the main factor Treasury...

This paper reports on a survey of past trends in national and sectoral R&D expenditure in New Zealand back to 1962 and models used to measure the rate of return to investment in R&D. Cobb Douglas models are compared with productivity models and are used to explore the interaction between R&D and...

In the course of another exercise (Johnson, Scrimgeour & Manning 2006) I compiled, with the help of CCMAU, a financial record of the crown research institutes from 1992 to 2005. In this paper I thought I would share with this audience some of the facts that emerged from the exercise and make...

In an idealised model the costs of capital and maintenance and the resulting flow of income benefits over a period of years enables the analyst to produce computations of present values and internal rates of return that summarise the whole investment process in a micro environment. In...

In the course of another exercise (Johnson, Scrimgeour & Manning 2006) I compiled, with the help of CCMAU, a financial record of the crown research institutes from 1992 to 2005. In this paper I thought I would share with this audience some of the facts that emerged from the exercise and make...

The present paper was inspired by and is a response to the Rola-Rubzen, Hardaker and Dillon paper ‘Agricultural economists and world poverty: progress and prospects’ (Rola-Rubzen et al. 2001). It is agreed that the position of agricultural economists in foreign aid and poverty programs has...