Vernon W. Ruttan

Toward a theory of induced institutional innovation

In this paper we elaborate a theory of institutional innovation in which changes in the demand for institutional innovation are induced by changes in relative resource endowments and by technical change. We illustrate, from agricultural history, how changes in resource endowments and technical change have induced changes in private property rights and in the development of non‐market institutions. We also consider the impact of advances in social science knowledge and of cultural endowments on the supply of institutional change. In a final section we present the elements of a model of institutional innovation that maps the relationships among resource endowments, cultural endowments, technology, and institutions.

Productivity Growth in World Agriculture: Sources and Constraints

There have been substantial increases in our understanding of the process of agricultural development over the last half century. Yet the productivity gap between developed and developing countries has not narrowed. In this paper I assess (a) the resource and environmental constraints and (b) the scientific and technical constraints that will confront the worlds farmers as they attempt to respond to the demands that will be placed on them over the next half century.

Economic benefits from research: an example from agriculture

In this article we examine the economic benefits of the long history of public research in agriculture. Agricultural productivity continues to grow. Annual rates of return on research expenditure are of the order of 50 percent. Research oriented to science is profitable when associated with technological research. Decentralization, as in the system of state agricultural experiment stations and substations, has allowed close association of research oriented to science with that oriented to technology and to farming. The high rate of return shows that investment in public research in agriculture is too low. This is at least partially because research benefits spill over to other regions and to consumers, reducing the incentives for local support.

Factor Prices and Technical Change in Agricultural Development: The United States and Japan, 1880-1960

The purpose of this paper is to explore the hypothesis that a common basis for rapid growth in agricultural output and productivity lies in a remarkable adaptation of agricultural technology to the sharply contrasting factor proportions in the two countries. It is hypothesized that an important aspect of this adaptation was the ability to generate a continuous sequence of induced innovations in agricultural technology biased towards saving the limiting factors. In Japan these innovations were primarily biological and chemical. In the United States they were primarily mechanical.

The intercountry agricultural production function and productivity differences among countries

Abstract The sources of differences in labor productivity in agriculture between developed countries (DCs) and less developed countries (LDCs) are identified by estimating an aggregate agricultural production function based on cross-county data for 1960, 1970 and 1980. The production function was found to be stable over the entire period. Agriculture in the DCs was characterized by increasing returns and in the LDCs by constant returns to scale. The results imply that unfavorable man/land ratios do not represent an immediate barrier to rapid agricultural development in the low-income LDCs. But they may create a serious agricultural adjustment problem as those countries advance into the middle-income range.

Usher and Schumpeter on Invention, Innovation, and Technological Change

Introduction, 596. — Innovation and technological change, 597. — Invention and innovation, 599. — Summary and conclusions, 605.

United States development assistance policy: the domestic politics of foreign economic aid.

Economist Vernon Ruttan offers a review of US development assistance policy from the end of World War II to 1995. His emphasis is on the structures and programmes that proliferated in this period and were designed to provide underdeveloped countries with technical and economic assistance. Ruttan follows the development of the US Agency for International Development, quasigovernmental agencies, and private voluntary organizations. He also examines US policy toward the World Bank, United Nations agencies and other international development assistance organizations. Ruttans interest is not to measure the impact of US assistance programmes, but to examine the domestic political forces that have directed US development assistance policy. By means of this review, he shows how political interests often detrimentally influenced development efforts. Ruttan concludes that the US development assistance programme is in disarray and that there is a real need for its deep re-evaluation and restructuring. The last two chapters of the book review past reform efforts and outline Ruttans own recommendations. This book should serve as a reference both for specialists and for those wanting a deeper understanding of development issues.

BUREAUCRATIC PRODUCTIVITY: THE CASE OF AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH

Among the most consistent themes in the new literature on public economics is the inference that the output of bureaucratic services tends to be excessive, both (a) relative to the equilibrium level of output if the same services were provided by private firms operating in a competitive market and (b) relative to the level of output preferred by the typical legislator and the typical voter. This perspective is perhaps most fully developed in the work of William A. Niskanen, Jr. (1968, 1971, 1975).1 It has become pervasive among a broad segment of the public economics school (Borcherding, 1977). The purpose of this paper is to confront the excess supply hypothesis with the large body of evidence that has accumulated on the rate of return to public sector agricultural research.

Integrated rural development programmes: A historical perspective

Abstract The pervasive poverty in rural areas has represented a continuing concern of national governments and development assistance agencies. One response to pervasive poverty has been the design of local institutions to enable rural communities to mobilize their own resources to generate growth and improve the quality of life. Programmes organized under the rubric of ‘community development’ were a major focus of development assistance during the 1950s and early 1960s. During the early 1970s concern about the distributional implications of economic growth again emerged as a major theme in development thought and development policy. This concern gave rise to two new development assistance approaches — ‘integrated rural development’ and ‘basic needs’ programmes. In this paper, I attempt to trace the development, accomplishments and limitations of the community development, integrated rural development and basic needs approaches.

Induced innovation and agricultural development

Abstract Dr Ruttan reviews the five general models in the literature on agricultural development: the frontier, conservation, urban- industrial impact, diffusion and high pay-off input models, and finds them lacking. He outlines a model of agricultural development which treats technical change as endogenous to the development process, rather than as an exogenous factor operating independently of it. This leads to an emphasis on the strong relationship between technological and institutional change and a call for institutional innovation that will result in a more effective realisation of the new technical potential.