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The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that lead to the controversy within the existing empirical literature on the relationship between land tenure and agricultural investments in China.

This study conducts a meta-regression analysis (MRA) based on 265 samples from 29 selected studies. These studies are collected from different regions and populations; therefore, this study utilizes a random-effects meta-regression model to control between-study heterogeneity.

The empirical results show that the variable “land-related long-term investments” significantly affects the relationship between land tenure and agricultural investments. The variables: “ration land,” “land titling” and “land transfer rights” all have significant effects on this relationship, but at different levels. The study area (e.g. “western China,” “central/inland China,” “two regions contained”), “plot level,” “panel data,” “sample size,” “considered endogeneity” and “off-farm employment” variables all significantly influence the relationship. Additionally, the results show that the relationship is significantly affected by the survey time.

Policymakers should treat the existing research conclusions with caution and pay more attention to defining land tenure. The relationship between land tenure and agricultural investments also depends on regional resource availability. Therefore, land property rights policies should be region-specific in order to successfully encourage agricultural investments.

In this study, the author collectively examines existing empirical studies to investigate whether their inconsistent results are affected by research characteristics. To the author’s knowledge, this is the first study that analyzes land tenure and agricultural investments in China using MRA. Future research should refine the definition of land tenure, the selection of agricultural investment types, the research method and the method of data collection.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the relative importance of different sources of finance for agricultural and non-agricultural investments using unique Smallholder Financial Diaries collected by Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) in Mozambique, Pakistan and Tanzania at the individual and household level.

Following the analytical framework of variance decomposition developed in Samphantharak and Townsend (2010), this study develops a method to quantify how much each cash deficit associated to investments and expenses of interest co-move with different financing sources.

This paper finds that self-finance, rather than formal or informal finance from external providers, is the main financing source for long-term and short-term smallholder agricultural investments. Further, the paper finds that the main source of self-finance varies depending on the economic opportunities faced by smallholders, with non-agricultural income as the dominant financing source for some, while agricultural income dominating for others.

Given CGAP’s Smallholder Financial Diaries is not nationally representative, research results should be interpreted carefully. However, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to analyze financing sources for smallholder households making use of high frequency financial data for individuals in developing countries.

These findings imply that financial inclusion policies specifically targeting smallholders and the agricultural sector would benefit from enabling the development of an ecosystem of diverse financial services that respond simultaneously to both agriculture and non-agriculture needs.

This is paper furthers the authors’ knowledge on how smallholder households are financing their agricultural investments. Moreover, it applies methods in new ways to exploit a unique data set.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of public investment in agricultural R&D and extension on broadacre farming productivity in Australia.

An autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) regression model is applied to estimate the effects of public investment in agricultural R&D and extension on Australian braodacre productivity.

The study reveals that public investment in agricultural R&D and extension has contributed almost two-thirds of average annual broadacre productivity growth between 1952-1953 and 2006-2007, the average internal rate of return to public investment in agricultural R&D and extension was 28.4 and 47.5 per cent a year, respectively, and overseas spill-ins is an important source of domestic agricultural productivity growth.

Policy implications: the findings suggest that increasing public investment in agricultural R&D and extension and maintaining agricultural R&D policy stability are equally important to have a sustained long-term agricultural productivity growth, and maintaining an open trade and investment regime is important to benefit from foreign knowledge spillovers which is especially important for developing countries.

This paper contributes to the existing literature by employing more sophisticated econometric techniques with an extended data set for the period from 1952-1953 to 2006-2007. The study separates the contribution of public R&D investment and the extension investment, and also takes into account the contribution of overseas public investment on the TFP growth in the Australian broadacre sector.

The purpose of this paper is to review China’s past returns in a period over the last 40 years to public agricultural and rural investments to highlight the importance for future strategic investments in China’s agri-food system and in rural areas.

The paper synthesizes research findings from previous studies and reviews more recent trends. Based on the main findings, the authors provide forward-looking guidance for China’s investments agriculture and rural areas in the context of emerging global and domestic trends in agriculture, food security, and nutrition.

Public investments in the agricultural research and development (R&D), rural education, and rural infrastructure have been shown to have significant positive returns to agricultural growth as well as to reductions in poverty and regional inequality. Returns to overall agricultural GDP were highest for agricultural R&D, followed by education, roads, and telephones. Investment in education had the greatest returns to poverty reduction, as well as to nonfarm GDP and overall rural GDP. Investment in agricultural R&D had the second greatest returns in term of poverty reduction, and was also a close second in returns to nonfarm GDP and overall rural GDP following education. The rural infrastructure spending also saw significant returns to poverty reduction, largely through growth in agricultural and nonagricultural sectors. Investments in agriculture and rural areas will continue to be important, as China and the world face emerging challenges amidst a changing global landscape, particularly regarding climate change, rapid urbanization, nutritional imbalances, and food safety concerns. In addressing these emerging challenges, continued support for agricultural R&D and innovations can play a key role.

The paper highlights research findings on key investment areas that will be increasingly important for China’s agri-food system, and provides guidance in the context of emerging trends impacting food security and nutrition.

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the argument linking land registration to agricultural investment and to provide theoretical reasons as to why this linkage may not materialise in Africa within the short to medium term.

The paper takes the form of a critical review of the relevant literature on land registration, access to credit and agricultural investment; arguments are built on empirical studies found in the literature and theoretical concepts.

It has been established in this paper that the links between landed property registration and agricultural investments are made defective in Africa by factors such as poverty, lack of appropriate agro‐based infrastructure and the fact that land registration per se does not improve the profitability of agriculture, neither does it improve access to credit.

The fact that this paper is based on literature review may be seen as a weakness to some extent.

Even though previous researchers have looked at the relationship between landed property registration and agricultural investment in the developing world, they fall short of critically explaining why land registration has been found not to enhance agricultural investment. This paper fills the gap through a combination of various theoretical and practical arguments which could call for a rethinking on the policies for promoting agricultural growth. The rigorous theoretical argument may also provide the basis for further empirical research.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) into agriculture on domestic investment in agriculture.

Time series data from 1976 to 2007 was fitted to a derived model.

Foreign direct investment into agriculture crowd-in domestic investment into agriculture.

A targeted approach that will attract foreign direct investment into agriculture is required as to complement existing efforts at boosting domestic agricultural investment.

Numerous papers investigated the relationship between foreign direct investment and domestic investment at the aggregate national and regional levels. However, the evidence for this relationship has been conflicting. That for agriculture is rare. For Ghana, a developing agrarian economy that has promoted foreign direct investment for some decades now, it is imperative to establish the relationship between foreign direct investments and domestic investment. Also, the estimation was based on a theoretically derived model.

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the impact of public agricultural Research and Development (R&D) investments on agricultural productivity and long-term food security to derive policy recommendations. The methodological approach is based on the application of the state-of-the art Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model to R&D. By endogenizing R&D in global CGE models, it is possible to assess the impact of different public R&D policies on the food availability and food access of food security. This study found that R&D investments bring positive effects on the food access dimension of food security, particularly in places such as Sub-Saharan Africa where prices are expected to grow significantly by 2050, as agricultural land becomes scarcer and more expensive. Doubling the R&D intensity would soften the land constraints and substantially decelerate food prices, thus preventing the deterioration of living standards of rural households and leading to a gain in daily caloric consumption. The impact of alternative agricultural R&D policies on the various dimensions of food security has not been analyzed using a CGE framework, which enables capturing both the benefits and costs from R&D investments. Modeling the dynamic accumulation of R&D stocks makes it possible to analyze the effects of R&D on food security over time.

The purposes of the study are to compare the investment behavior of farmers in Kazakhstan as a transforming country and in Germany as a Western industrialized country as well as to analyze whether the investment behavior of farmers is consistent with the normative benchmarks of the net present value approach or the real options (RO) approach.

The paper conducted an experiment with 100 Kazakhstani and 106 German farmers. The first part of the experiment describes an investment opportunity in an agricultural and in a non-agricultural treatment. The second part refers to a Holt and Laury lottery to determine farmers' risk attitude that could influence the investment behavior.

The results show that both approaches do not provide an exact prediction of the investment behavior of farmers. However, German farmers invest later than Kazakhstani farmers meaning that the investment behavior of German farmers is closer to the RO approach. This might imply that German farmers are more likely to take into account the value of flexibility when making investment decisions than Kazakhstani farmers.

Since investment behavior is country-specific, it is worth investigating whether farmers from other transforming countries would show different investment behavior compared to farmers from other Western industrialized countries. Furthermore, decision-making behavior related to investments could be different from that related to disinvestments. Therefore, it may be interesting to analyze the disinvestment decisions of farmers in transforming and Western industrialized countries.

The results show that it is not acceptable to apply the results of experiments investigating the investment behavior of entrepreneurs in a transforming country to entrepreneurs in a Western industrialized country and vice versa. Furthermore, training for farmers is needed because there is still room for improvement in order to achieve the RO benchmark. Finally, taking into account RO effects could improve the results of policy impact analysis.

This is the first experimental study comparing the investment behavior of farmers from a transforming country and from a Western industrialized country.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a dynamic computable general equilibrium (DCGE) model to analyze economy‐wide impacts of different types of public spending in China. A particular focus is placed on their impacts on food economy.

In this paper, DCGE model is developed to analyze economy‐wide impacts of different types of public spending in China. The effects of increased agricultural subsidies, agricultural R&D, and irrigation are simulated by using China DCGE model.

The results show that public spending has significant impact on food production, price, and trade. The increased public spending on agricultural R&D, irrigation, and agricultural subsidy also has modest impacts on other sectors such as industry, service, and GDP growth.

The paper constructs the China dynamic CGE model and analyzes economy‐wide impacts of different types of public spending in China, especially for the food economy.

The Chinese Government has used a number of policies to encourage commercial agribusiness firms to do more innovation. These include public sector agricultural research and development (R&D), public sector biotechnology research and innovation, subsidies for commercial research, encouraging foreign firms to invest in China as minority shareholders in joint ventures, and allowing commercial companies to raise money on the stock market. The purpose of this paper is to assess whether these policies were effective in stimulating innovations by commercial firms in China.

This study estimates the impact of public biotech research and other policies by employing an econometric model of patenting by commercial firms. It uses a unique data set collected from commercial agribusiness firms for the years 2001, 2004, 2005, and 2006. Addition data were collected from public research institutes and universities and patent data from the Derwent Innovations Index database. It employs four count data models for the empirical analysis.

This study finds a positive impact of public biotechnology (measured by the number of biotech patents of government research institutes and public universities) on commercial innovation measured by the number of patents granted to the commercial firms. As expected the firm’s research expenditure and having their own R&D center (as opposed to contracting R&D or no R&D investment at all) have a positive and statistically significant effect on the number of patents granted. The impacts of public R&D investment spending have no statistically significant effect on commercial innovation. Multi-national firms and publicly traded firms have fewer patents than their counterparts suggesting that policies to encourage multi-nationals and financing through stock markets had no impact on innovation.

This study is one of the first studies to untangle the relationship between government policies and innovation by commercial agricultural research output and public R&D investment and biotechnology. The main findings suggest that simply increasing research money to public research does not increase commercial innovations, but moving resources to the development patentable biotech does improve commercial research productivity. The results also suggest that policies to increase commercial research will also increase innovation. These could include strengthening the legal framework and institutional resources for public institutes to the protection and enforcement of intellectual properties.