Developments in the Organization and Finance of PublicAgricultural Research in the United States, 1988-1999

This paper describes major external changes to the U.S. public agricultural researchsystem over 1988-1999; describes the reactions of the public agricultural research system to theexternal changes, specifying the innovations that have occurred over the last decade; and drawsconclusions about the present and future performance of the U.S. research system. The decade ofthe 1990s brought slow growth to public agricultural research funding. CSREES tried tostimulate greater interests in competitive grant programs. The states have generally resisted thismove. A major asymmetry exists in the sharing of transactions costs associated with externalpeer-reviewed competitive grant programs. This is especially true when the average grant size issmall and the average award rate is low.[...]