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Abstract
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 which is illustrated here with new evidence for Brazil. Over the
period 1981 to 2003, varietal improvements in upland rice, edible beans, and soybeans
yielded benefits attributable to research of $14.8 billion in present value (1999 prices) terms; 6.1 percent of the corresponding value of crop output. If all of those benefits were attributed
to Embrapa, a public research corporation accounting for more than half Brazil's agricultural
R&D spending, the benefit-cost ratio would be 78:1. If a geometric attribution rule based on
genetic histories is used in conjunction with quantitative evidence on the extent of research
collaborations to account for the innovative effort of others, the ratio drops substantially to
16:1. The sources of these gains vary markedly among crops and over time, making it hard to
generalize about the international and institutional origins of varietal innovations in Brazilian agriculture during the past several decades.