In general, reported rates of return to agricultural R&D are high, but questions have been raised about upward biases in the evidence. Among the reasons for this bias, insufficient attention to attribution aspects. Matching of research benefits and costs is a pervasive problem, the magnitude of...

IFPRI has long argued that spending on agricultural research constitutes a sound investment in poverty reduction and agricultural and economic growth, through improvements in productivity. This argument is based partly on the reported evidence of high rates of return to agricultural research,...

Reported rates of return to agricultural R&D are generally high, but they are likely to be biased, particularly because of attribution problems-mismatching research benefits with costs. The importance of attribution biases is illustrated here with new evidence for Brazil. During 1981-2003,...

In general, reported rates of return to agricultural R&D are high, but questions have been raised about upward biases in the evidence. Among the reasons for this bias, insufficient attention to attribution aspects-matching of research benefits and costs-is a pervasive problem, the magnitude of...

Reported rates of return to agricultural R&D are generally high, but they are likely to be biased, particularly because of attribution problems—mismatching research benefits with costs. The importance of attribution biases is illustrated here with new evidence for Brazil. During 1981–2003,...

In general, reported rates of return to agricultural R&D are high, but questions have been raised about upward biases in the evidence. Among the reasons for this bias, insufficient attention to attribution aspects-matching of research benefits and costs-is a pervasive problem, the magnitude of...