Agricultural commodity taxes, called check-offs, are used to finance promotion, research, and other activities that can be regarded as industry collective goods. The collection of the check-offs and the programs they are used to fund have implications for the welfare of consumers, other...

This chapter first discusses what economists mean by "the incidence of agricultural policy" and why we care about it. Then it reviews models of the determinants of the differential incidence of different policies among interest groups such as suppliers of factors of production, consumers,...

Agricultural research has transformed agriculture and in doing so contributed to the transformation of economies. Economic issues arise because agricultural research is subject to various market failures, because the resulting innovations and technological changes have important economic...

We use newly constructed state-specific data to explore the implications of common modeling choices for measures of research returns. Our results indicate that state-to-state spillover effects are important, that the research and development lag is longer than many studies have allowed, and that...

This chapter first discusses what economists mean by “the incidence of agricultural policy” and why we care about it. Then it reviews models of the determinants of the differential incidence of different policies among interest groups such as suppliers of factors of production, consumers,...

CONTEXT -- A Brief History of U.S. Agriculture -- INPUTS, OUTPUTS AND PRODUCTIVITY -- Agricultural Inputs -- Agricultural Outputs -- Agricultural Productivity Patterns -- AGRICULTURAL R&D FUNDING AND POLICIES -- Research Funding and Performance -- The Federal Role -- MODELS OF R&D AND...

The beggar-thy-neighbour aspect of commodity advertising means that benefits to one commodity from advertising come at the expense of other commodities. The effect can be mitigated by cooperation among groups as shown by Alston, Freebairn and James (AFJ). A drawback to AFJ's analysis is that...