Over the years, proposals have recommended shifting the focus of public agricultural research from applied to basic research, and giving higher priority to peer-reviewed, competitively funded grants. The public agricultural research system in the United States is a Federal-State partnership,...

Prior research shows long-run productivity growth in agriculture is associated with increases in the stock of public scientific knowledge and private patented inventions. However, private inventions may be a function of the stock of public knowledge. In this paper, we examine the possibility...