Agricultural Economics includes several sub-disciplines as illustrated in the Handbook of Agricultural Economics (Evenson & Pingali, 2007). One of these is the analysis of investment in research and development (R&D) and innovation in agriculture and the subsequent contribution to productivity and long-term economic growth. In this area agricultural economists typically focus on the returns to investment, the allocation of resources to research, and the institutional, regulatory and intellectual property regimes that affect agricultural R&D. This special issue of Agrekon is a collection of papers that reflect research in this area of agricultural economics. In particular, they focus on a body of work initiated and funded by the Agricultural Research Council’s (ARC) Collaborative Research Centre on the Economics of Agricultural Research at the University of Pretoria. The Centre was established in 2015 as a consortium of researchers at the ARC and the Universities of Pretoria, Limpopo and Fort Hare. The collection of papers selected here is the first tranche of output from the Centre and includes research papers plus dissertations and theses written over the last three years by post-graduate students attached to the Centre. The growth and success of the Centre relied substantially on the expertise of Dr Frikkie Liebenberg who sadly died on 13 March 2017 and therefore this special issue is dedicated to his memory. At the time of his passing, Frikkie was the leading South African scholar in the economics of R&D, productivity growth and the institutional history of the South African agricultural research system. He also created a data rescue initiative with the aim of making historical data accessible to researchers, generating new datasets and subsequently contributing to the big data drive in the economics of agricultural R&D. He also undertook capacity development for staff members at the ARC and postgraduate students at the University of Pretoria. Therefore, this special issue highlights the value of this essential work and hopefully will generate further interest and debate on the economics of agricultural research and technology policy studies in South Africa. The issue contains 10 papers, many of which originated from studies initiated by Frikkie and include research undertaken with some of his international colleagues at IFPRI (the ASTI programme) and the University of Minnesota. In the first paper Johann Kirsten, Phil Pardey and Colin Thirtle, all of whom have known and collaborated with Frikkie for most of his research career, reflect on how his work relates to international trends in agricultural economics. The second is by Nienke Beintema at IFPRI, who was his longstanding collaborator, together with co-authors Chaminuka and Flaherty. Frikkie spent many years supporting the “Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators” programme (ASTI) by compiling data on South Africa and other sub-Saharan Africa countries. Thus, their paper updates the earlier ASTI indicators for South Africa using the latest survey data. One important dimension in the economic analysis of agricultural output growth and the role of innovation is the need for long time-series data on agricultural outputs and input use. This requires

中文翻译：

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衡量和解释南非农业的生产力增长

农业经济学包括若干子学科，如《农业经济学手册》（Evenson & Pingali，2007 年）所示。其中之一是对农业研发 (R&D) 和创新投资以及随后对生产力和长期经济增长的贡献的分析。在这一领域，农业经济学家通常关注投资回报、研究资源的分配以及影响农业研发的制度、监管和知识产权制度。本期 Agrekon 特刊收录了反映农业经济学领域研究的论文集。特别是，他们专注于由比勒陀利亚大学农业研究委员会 (ARC) 农业研究经济学合作研究中心发起和资助的一系列工作。该中心成立于 2015 年，由 ARC 和比勒陀利亚大学、林波波大学和哈尔堡大学的研究人员组成。此处选择的论文集是该中心的第一批成果，包括研究论文以及该中心附属研究生在过去三年中撰写的论文和论文。该中心的成长和成功在很大程度上依赖于 Frikkie Liebenberg 博士的专业知识，他于 2017 年 3 月 13 日不幸去世，因此特刊特刊是为了纪念他。在他去世时，弗里基是南非研发经济学领域的领先学者，生产力增长和南非农业研究系统的制度历史。他还发起了一项数据拯救计划，旨在让研究人员可以访问历史数据、生成新数据集并随后为农业研发经济学中的大数据驱动做出贡献。他还为 ARC 的工作人员和比勒陀利亚大学的研究生进行了能力培养。因此，本期特刊强调了这项重要工作的价值，并有望引起对南非农业研究和技术政策研究经济学的进一步兴趣和辩论。该期包含 10 篇论文，其中许多源自 Frikkie 发起的研究，包括与他在 IFPRI（ASTI 计划）和明尼苏达大学的一些国际同事进行的研究。在第一篇论文中，Johann Kirsten、Phil Pardey 和 Colin Thirtle（他们在弗里基的大部分研究生涯中都认识并与他合作）反思了他的工作如何与农业经济学的国际趋势相关联。第二个是 IFPRI 的 Nienke Beintema，他是他的长期合作者，以及共同作者 Chaminuka 和 Flaherty。Frikkie 多年来一直致力于通过汇编南非和其他撒哈拉以南非洲国家的数据来支持“农业科技指标”计划 (ASTI)。因此，他们的论文使用最新的调查数据更新了南非早期的 ASTI 指标。农业产出增长和创新作用的经济分析的一个重要维度是需要关于农业产出和投入使用的长期时间序列数据。这需要