@article{Pardey:172322,
      recid = {172322},
      author = {Pardey, Philip G. and Kang, M. Sandra and Elliott, Howard},
      title = {Structure of Public Support for National Agricultural  Research Systems: A Political Economy Perspective},
      journal = {Agricultural Economics: The Journal of the International  Association of Agricultural Economists},
      address = {1989-12},
      number = {968-2016-75684},
      pages = {18},
      year = {1989},
      abstract = {This paper initiates development of a set of stylized  facts concerning the structure of public
support for  national agricultural research systems (NARS) within a  neoclassical political economy
framework. The aim is to  place public funding of NARS in the broader context of the  overall
level of direct government assistance to  agriculture. Using a newly constructed data set on  NARS
expenditures over the 1970-85 period, we observe a  growing disparity in agricultural research
intensity  ratios, which measure the level of public support for NARS  in relation to agricultural
gross domestic production  (AgGDP) between low and high-income countries. This growing  disparity
appears to be driven by much larger increases in  support for agricultural research by highincome
countries,  coupled with a significantly slower growth in the size of  their agricultural sector,
despite the propensity oflow and  middle-income countries to increase real support to  agricultural
research.
As per-capita incomes rise the  public agricultural expenditure ratio, which measures  public
expenditures on agriculture relative to the size of  the agricultural sector, AgGDP, increases  substantially.
Public expenditures on agriculture were  indexed on agricultural and non-agricultural
populations to  give a rough indication of the increasing incentives for  rural 'distributional coalitions'
to seek a redistribution  of public expenditures in their favor.
A relative research  expenditure (RRE) ratio is developed, which measures the  proportion of
total public expenditure on agriculture spent  on agricultural research. It provides an indication of
the  relative importance given to research on agriculture within  the constraints imposed by overall
public spending on  agriculture. In contrast to the agricultural research  intensity ratios, the RRE
ratios suggest that agricultural  research appears to command as large a share of the public  purse
devoted to agriculture in low and middle-income  countries as it does in high-income countries.
Expectations  derived from the neoclassical political economy literature  that research may have
fared relatively better in high  compared with low-income countries were not supported by  the
data.},
      url = {http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/172322},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.172322},
}