Welfare tradeoffs between intellectual property (IP) protections provided by patents and by plant variety protection (PVP) are explored. PVP breeders' exemption weakens IP protection, but may speed the transfer of research gains across firms. A model is developed assuming firms optimize research...

In the United States, public universities may choose to license a plant variety to a limited number of producers (an exclusive license) or to an unlimited number of producers (an open license). This choice has implications for the quantity and distribution of total benefits from the variety....

Two types of public choice models have been applied to model the political economy of farm programs: the self-willed government (SWG) model and the clearinghouse government (CHG) model. In terms of theory, the two models are very similar but most analysts prefer the CHG model. In terms of...

The Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), if negotiated to a successful completion, will affect world trading patterns. This paper summarizes and analyzes the structure of the international markets for fruits and vegetables, and projects changes in response to...

This article investigates economies of scale and scope and other potential sources of improvements in the economic efficiency of China's crop breeding, an industry at the heart of the nation's food economy. Using data covering 46 wheat- and maize-breeding institutes from 1981 to 2000, we...

In spite of the proliferation of flexible functional forms for consumer demand systems, the double-log demand model continues to be popular, especially in applied work calling for single-equation models. It is usually estimated in uncompensated form. It can also be estimated in compensated form,...