2013, Volume 21, Paper 5
ISSN: 1883-5675

How did we go? Revisiting the ex ante economic impact assessment of the CRC for Beef Genetic Technologies, as the cessation of funding

G.R. Griffith
K.S. Pollock
H.M. Burrow

In re-assessing the original estimates of economic benefit as at the end of the CRC investment phase, the most prominent issues to consider were the potential total productivity growth available to the beef and cattle industries as a result of CRC technologies, how each research program contributed to the overall productivity gain, the level of adoption of the technologies by industry and the time lag of this adoption. This paper has reviewed the impact of adjusting these variables on the total economic benefit of the CRC to the Australian beef and cattle industry, given information available in June 2012. A reduction in potential productivity gains (due primarily to slower-than-anticipated delivery of new genomic technologies that also impacted on industry adoption times) had the largest impact on benefit to industry, followed by a reduction in the expected maximum level of adoption. Research program components of growth, R&D lags and adoption lags had more marginal impacts.

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