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.