R & D Spillovers to Agriculture : Measurement and Application

We present new data on research spillovers between nations and between industries, discussing some theoretical and measurement issues. Our technique makes patent data more useful and practical for economic analysis, allowing analysis of the industries of manufacture and sectors of use for inventions. This paper traces new technology introduced for use in the agricultural and food processing sectors in 14 less developed and newly industrialized nations, comparing the regional and industrial sources of these inventions across time for each. Finally, we present an application using these data, which shows that both international and interindustrial spillovers add to agricultural total factor productivity, and we distinguish between the direct and indirect effects of spillovers from public and private, domestic and foreign sources