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Innovation of Innovation: A (Personal and Partial) Appreciation of the Contributions of Bob Evenson. Brian Wright Agricultural and Resource Economics UC Berkeley 17 th Annual ICABR Robert Evenson Memorial Ravello Italy June 19, 2013. Focus: Innovation of Innovation. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Innovation of Innovation:A (Personal and Partial)
Appreciation of the Contributions of Bob Evenson
Brian WrightAgricultural and Resource Economics
UC Berkeley
17th Annual ICABRRobert Evenson Memorial Ravello Italy June 19, 2013
Focus:Innovation of Innovation
The Challenge: How to ensure
1. Innovation that is consistent with societal goals
2. Innovation that optimally exploits scientific advances
3. Diffusion and adoption of such innovations at optimal speed
4. Sustained performance of such innovation and adoption over generations
Agriculture as the Model
Advantages:•Data availability
•Relevance
•My personal window on Bob Evenson’s contributions
Background
• Earlier studies (including crucial contributions of Schultz and Griliches, Evenson’s mentor)
• Application of economics to sociology of diffusion of innovation established:1. Response to incentives2. Role of education3. Region-specificity4. Demise of the myth of the “unresponsive
peasantry”
Background
• Earlier studies (including important contributions of Griliches, Evenson’s mentor)
• Economic evaluation of rates of return to research – Agriculture as the example– Importance of data availability– Remarkable rates of return
Background
Hayami, Ruttan, Binswanger• Response of direction of research to
economic returns: 1. Empirical evidence2. Theoretical rationalization
Prior Achievements
• Empirical verification of economic responsiveness of farmers to incentives including innovation opportunities
• Establishment of high rates of return on US agricultural research
• Verification of theory that research can be an effective, (if under-supplied ), public good
Unanswered challenges:
How to conceptualize a system of agricultural innovation of an appropriate global scale?
How to design and implement it
Key challenges for Innovation of Agricultural Innovation Systems:
1. Design2. Funding3. Implementation4. Evaluation
Evensons’s Focus:
1. Design of innovation missions and their global integration
2. Implementation: national and international
3. Evaluation: private and social
1. The Design of Innovation Missions a) Innovation as an economically guided
activityb) Farmers and Blacksmiths as pioneers of
“open source” innovationc) International research centers as upstream
research providers with an evolving roled) Established importance of local adaptive
research capacitye) Dependence of extension on innovation
supplyf) Emphasized and evaluated empirically the
complementarity of national and international innovations
The Design of Innovation Systems
2. The supply of basic research• Pioneering modeling of
innovation as search using extreme value distributions (with Kislev)
• Empirical verification• Emphasized development of
capacities for local research, and research management
The Design of Innovation Systems
3. The design and role of patent systems
- used citations- constructed concordance
Implementation of Innovation of Innovation Institutions
Worldwide efforts
(a sample of) Evensons’s Contributions:(my personal experience)
Implementation of Innovation of Innovation Institutions
1. Philippines work at IRRI• Applied econometrics to questions
from crop breeding to nutrition• Mentored many leaders in the area
(a sample of) Evensons’s Contributions:(my personal experience)
Implementation of Innovation of Innovation Institutions
2. EMBRAPA Brazil in the 1980s•Followed Ed Schuh’s lead•Project evaluation courses•International education as sustained EMBRAPA policy•Sustained leadership in institutional development•Big and sustained payoffs
Evensons’s Contributions:Implementation of Innovation of
Innovation Institutions
3. Construction and analysis of new patent and citation data sets• Anticipated later widespread interest• Farmer and Blacksmith agricultural
innovations• Famous “concordance” with Jon
Putnam
Evensons’s Contributions:Implementation of Innovation of
Innovation Institutions4. Founding leader (with Vittorio Santaniello) of the Ravello meetings on the economics of agricultural biotechnology and the “gene revolution”• Pasquale Scandizzo as the “Godfather” of
the initiative• David Zilberman and Carl Pray as carriers
of the torch• from a few dozen to hundreds of
participants in a few years• Created an international community of
researchers
Evensons’s Contributions:Implementation of Innovation
Institutions5. Evenson as teacher and mentor of researchers who became key elements of all parts of the global innovation system • In agricultural and development
economics (look around you today!)
• AND beyond
Influence beyond agriculture
• Found complementarity of domestic and foreign patenting in Indian Industry (with Anil Deolalikar)
• Anticipated TRIPS discussions on effects on LDCs.
Influence beyond agriculture
Evenson emphasized and demonstrated empirically the complementarity of national and international innovations:
Influenced fundamental, highly cited papers in Business. For example:
• Teece 1986
• Cohen and Leventhal
David Teece: “Profiting from Technological Innovation”
Research Policy 15 (6) 1986
• Emphasized role of complementary assets in determining the success of firm innovation
• Ability to adapt to (mainly demand side) features of the market
• Importance of interaction with local manufacturing
• Anecdotal post-hoc reasoning• Unclear prescriptive content
Wesley Cohen and David Leventhal
• “Innovation and Learning: The Two Faces of R&D.” Economic Journal 99, 1989
• “Absorptive Capacity: A New Perspective on Learning and Innovation.” Administrative Science Quarterly 35 No. 1, 1990
• Importance of scientifically informed “gatekeeper”• Importance of local research• Cohen was a Yale student when Evenson was a
professor
Summary:Evenson as Intellectual leader• History of science for agriculture in US• Design and performance of global and local agricultural
research institutions• Analysis of economics of agricultural research • Construction and analysis of patent and citation data• Precursor of leading literature on innovation strategy in
industry• Rare example of an economist whose contributions
have had undisputable effect on the welfare of people.
SummaryEvenson as a human being
• Visionary with his feet in the dirt, his hands on the data, and his heart in the right place
• Exemplary human being• Wonderful mentor• Had a wonderful asset in his wife Judy• A friend forever
Thanks, Bob!