research on cotton and peanuts in the region contributed to the production of those quantities
commodities, respectively. These increases were due to the combination of inputs used in the
production process and research expenditures in the area of production. The improved efficiency
can be in the form of improvements in the quality of the inputs or in the way the inputs are
combined. This growth in productivity reduces the real costs of production.
Public research scientists and administrators are being held more accountable for the
resources allocated to conduct public agricultural research. This creates a need for current
research systems to be continuously evaluated in order to monitor investment decisions. One way
to monitor current research systems is to measure the effectiveness of monies allocated to
research projects using an internal rate of return. Information on the nature, extent and
distribution of social benefits and costs are useful for this type of evaluation.
The purpose of this study was to utilize the economic surplus framework for evaluating
the impact of investment in agricultural research. The economic impact measures used in this
study were the total benefits and distribution of those benefits associated with investment in
agricultural research. These results were used to calculate an internal rate of return on the
investments. The focus of the research was on cotton and peanuts in the Southeast region of the
United States. Two equations were estimated to determine the impacts of the money being spent
on the research efforts of these two commodities.
The model in this study consists of supply functions for cotton and peanuts that were
estimated using data derived from pooled time-series cross-sectional data for the four states of
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. The prices, quantities, harvested acres, and cost
of production were considered exogenous variables in the supply models for both commodities.