Return to Poultry Research in the United States

Two approaches are used to estimate a rate of return to investment in poultry research. The index‐number approach utilizes productivity indexes to measure downward shifts in the long‐run poultry supply function in order to estimate the annual value of consumer surplus, or “resources saved,” resulting from increased efficiency in the production of poultry products. The flow of annual net social returns is then related to the flow of annual poultry research expenditures to derive a rate of return to research. In the production‐function approach, state experiment station research is included as a separate variable in an aggregate poultry production function in order to estimate the marginal product of poultry research. The results indicate that past investment in poultry research has been yielding a return of about 20 to 30 percent per year from the date of investment.