Journal ArticleDOI
Mechanized Agriculture and Social Welfare: The Case of the Tomato Harvester
Andrew Schmitz,David Seckler +1 more
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
In this article, an integrated public-private approach to mechanical harvesting of tomatoes for canning has sharply reduced producers' labor requirements, and gross social returns to aggregate research and development expenditures are in the vicinity of 1,000 percent.Abstract:
An integrated public-private approach to mechanical harvesting of tomatoes for canning has sharply reduced producers ' labor requirements. Gross social returns to aggregate research and development expenditures are in the vicinity of 1,000 percent. Even if displaced labor had been compensated for wage loss, net social returns are still highly favorable. Since tomato pickers were unorganized, no compensation was demanded or paid. The analysis indicates a need for policies designed to distribute the benefits and costs of technological change more equitably. Social scientists could properly be concerned with developing institutional means of achieving this goal.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Efficiency and Equity in Public Research: Rice Breeding in Japan's Economic Development
Masakatsu Akino,Yujiro Hayami +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the extremely high rate of returns to rice research in Japan provides evidence that an underinvestment in agricultural research is typical, and that public support is required in order to attain a socially optimum level of investment in research.
Journal ArticleDOI
Evidence of under-investment in energy R&D in the United States and the impact of Federal policy
Robert Margolis,Daniel M. Kammen +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the relationship between expenditures on R&D and innovation, with a particular focus on the energy sector, and concluded that there has been a significant and sustained pattern of under-investment in the US energy sector.
Posted Content
Structural change in agricultural production: Economics, technology and policy
TL;DR: In this paper, an economic analysis of the factors influencing the evolution of agricultural production is presented, focusing on the role of technology and resource mobility, and the relationships with changes in market conditions are evaluated.
Journal ArticleDOI
Attribution and other problems in assessing the returns to agricultural R&D
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the problem of accounting for locational spillovers in attributing varietal-improvement technology among research performers, using US wheat varieties as an example.
Book
Farm Size and the Organization of U.S. Crop Farming
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focused on farm-level data to evaluate the key driving forces, including technologies, farm organization and business relationships, land attributes, and government policies, and concluded that the trends are likely to continue.
References
More filters
Book ChapterDOI
The Costs and Returns of Human Migration
TL;DR: In this paper, the influence of migration as an equilibrating mechanism in a changing economy has been examined and it is shown that the movements of migrants clearly are in the appropriate direction, but we do not know whether the numbers are sufficient to correct income disparities as they emerge.
Journal ArticleDOI
Research Costs and Social Returns: Hybrid Corn and Related Innovations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors estimate the realized social rate of return on hybrid-corn research, one of the outstanding technological successes of the century, subject to a wide margin of error.
Book
A critique of welfare economics
TL;DR: The New Welfare Economics (1): Welfare Criteria 7. The New Welfare economics (2): The Economic Welfare Function 8. The 'Optimum' Conditions of Production and Exchange (1) 9. The "optimum' conditions of production and exchange (2) 10. Indivisibilities and consumers' Surplus 11. Output and Price Policy in Public Enterprise 12. The Valuation of the National Income 13. Welfare Theory and International Trade 14.
Journal ArticleDOI
The structure of competitive industry
TL;DR: In this paper, MacGregor and Macgregor discuss the tendency towards industrial combination in British Industry and the trust movement in British industry, and present the structure of the British Industrial Combination.