108 Agricultural Research and Produciiviiy 



b. Discovery activity directed toward technological develop- 

 ment suited to economic, soil, and climate conditions sig- 

 nificantly different from those of the district, but which is 

 nonetheless superior to existing technology 



c. Discovery activity by producers themselves who modify 

 and "adapt" new technology to farm-specific conditions. 



2. The reduction of economic "slack" or economic and tech- 

 nique choice errors. These improvements can result from: 



a. Improvements in technique choice by farmers, that is, the 

 adoption o{ cxisiini^ technology which is superior to that 

 in use 



b. Improvements in allocative efficiency by farmers, that is, 

 utilizing resources in a more cost-minimizing fashion. 

 (Broadly interpreted, allocative efficiency would encom- 

 pass technique choice.) 



c. Improvements in factor supply efficiency, including 

 credit. 



Now we turn to the development of an econometric specifica- 

 tion with which to identify the effect of lADP programs. Basically, 

 the test of the contribution of I ADP programs, which are chiefly 

 designed to reduce economic slack, has to be made in terms of 

 associating increased total factor productivity with lADP ac- 

 tivities, holding constant the contributions of technological dis- 

 covery activity and geoclimate factors, cr/;^ controlling for the ini- 

 lial level of economic slack. The prior evaluations of Brown and 

 G.O.I, did not attempt to take into account the fact that the level 

 of economic slack existing at the beginning of the program in 

 1961 was in all probability /oHv/in the I ADP districts than in the 

 non-IADP districts. This was the result of the selection process 

 used. As a consequence of this selection, the lADP districts had 

 the least scope for realizing the gains that lADP programs were 

 designed to achieve. Without an lADP program these districts 

 would have been expected to do less well in terms of productivity 

 growth than non-IADP districts in the 1960s. 



The econometric specification is of the following form; 

 TFR^ =C+ b^DIADP^ + b^DREGi 



+ b^DDRii+ b^SR^j + b^RRj, 



+ b^iSR X RR\, + b^TFP566\i 



+ e. (6.3) 



