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!