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An Analysis of Public Agricultural Research in the Canadian Prairie Provinces
Author(s) -
Brooks H.G.,
Furtan W.H.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
canadian journal of agricultural economics/revue canadienne d'agroeconomie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.505
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 1744-7976
pISSN - 0008-3976
DOI - 10.1111/j.1744-7976.1984.tb02132.x
Subject(s) - agriculture , commodity , simultaneous equations model , scrutiny , economics , consistency (knowledge bases) , structural equation modeling , agricultural economics , public economics , econometrics , political science , geography , mathematics , statistics , geometry , archaeology , law , market economy
Research expenditures in agriculture have come under close scrutiny in Canada. This paper describes the agricultural research system in Canada, develops an economic model to explain research expenditures and estimate the model for the Canadian prairies. Economic variables do explain research expenditures. Summary This study has developed a four‐equation model of agricultural research in Canada using some aspects of special interest theory, institutional theory and economic variables. The demand, supply and allocation equations were developed with special reference to the Canadian agricultural research sector and the more restrictive prairie agricultural research sector. The conceptual model developed is designed to explain the allocation of public expenditures on commodity specific applied research. The reduced‐form equation of the model was estimated for 6 commodity classes (2 crops, 4 livestock groups) to test the applicability of the model over the commodity groups. The evaluation of the reduced‐form equation model and the implications that derive from it give an interesting view of the Canadian research sector. Some variables did perform as a priori expected with relative consistency and certain equations performed very well. These results lead to some implications for the Canadian agricultural research sector. The general performance of the reduced‐form equation and its ability to explain the total variation of expenditures on commodity specific agricultural research gives limited support to the model developed. Nevertheless the results tend to indicate that agricultural research is responsive to economic and institutional variables.