Linking technical change to research effort: an examination of aggregationand spillovers effects

We used a disaggregate approach to examine investment efficiency of wheat b reeding research in India. India's total research effort comprizes 20 resea rch programs spread across 50 experiment stations. A technology spillover m atrix was constructed for both potential and actual spillovers. Spillovers and free-riding were dominant characteristics of technical change during th e period studied. Although the aggregate rare of return to wheat improvemen t research in India was estimated to be 55%, eight programs were found to h ave earned a negative rate of return when spillins were taken into account. Research output is concentrated on a few strong programs. The two stronges t programs generated 75% of all the technical change benefits, even though they claimed just 22% of research resources. These two programs include a s ignificant degree of overlap, while on the other hand many farmers were not reached by any of the programs - 56 and 78% of rainfed and durum area, res pectively, in 1990 was still sown with pre- 1976 varieties. (C) 2001 Elsevi er Science B.V. All rights reserved.