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Abstract
Interstate and international spillovers from public agricultural research and
development (R&D) investments account for a significant share of agricultural
productivitygrowth. Hence, spillovers of agricultural R&D results across geopolitical
boundaries have implications for measures of research impacts on productivity,
and the implied rates of return to research, as well as for state, national and
international agricultural research policy. In studies of aggregate state or national
agricultural productivity, interstate or international R&D spillovers might account
for half or more of the total measured productivitygrowth. Similarly, results from
studies of particular crop technologies indicate that international technology
spillovers, and multinational impacts of technologies from international centres,
were important elements in the total picture of agricultural development in the 20th
Century. Within countries, funding institutions have been developed to address
spatial spillovers of agricultural technologies. The fact that corresponding
institutions have not been developed for international spillovers has contributed to
a global underinvestment in certain types of agricultural research.