The impact of domestic and foreign R&D on agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa
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Authors
Adetutu, MO
Ajayi, Victor
Publication Date
2020-01Journal Title
World Development
ISSN
0305-750X
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Volume
125
Number
104690
Pages
104690-104690
Language
en
Type
Article
This Version
AM
Metadata
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Adetutu, M., & Ajayi, V. (2020). The impact of domestic and foreign R&D on agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa. World Development, 125 (104690), 104690-104690. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.104690
Abstract
We use a stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) model to investigate the impact of domestic and foreign R&D on agricultural productivity for a sample of 30 sub-Sahara African (SSA) countries during the period 1981–2011. The results reveal that total factor productivity is strongly influenced by both domestic and foreign R&D spending in the agricultural sector, albeit the former plays a more important role. The decomposition of total factor productivity (TFP) and its components show an annual average rate of productivity growth of 4.8%, driven mainly by technical change which had an average annual improvement of 3.2%. Efficiency change had a negative impact on productivity and generally exhibited a net reduction in TFP growth at an average annual growth rate of −0.8%. Our sub-regional analyses indicate the West African region recorded the highest productivity growth during the period under consideration. Overall, our findings highlight the crucial role of knowledge stocks in driving agricultural productivity in the SSA region.
Sponsorship
We wish to express our deep appreciation to the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) for the financial support to carry out this research under the grant RT16523.
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.104690
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/297995
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Licence URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
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