摘要：Commodity levies are used increasingly to fund producer collective goods such asresearch and promotion. In the present paper we examine theoretical relationshipsbetween producer and national benefits from levy-funded research, and considerthe implications for the appropriate rates of matching government grants, appliedwith a view to achieving a closer match between producer and national interests. Inmany cases the producer and national optima coincide. First, regardless of theform of the supply shift, when product demand is perfectly elastic, or all the prod-uct is exported, domestic benefits and costs of levy-funded research all go to pro-ducers and they have appropriate incentives. Second, if research causes a parallelsupply shift, the producer share of research benefits is the same as their share ofcosts of a levy, and their incentives are compatible with national interests. In suchcases, a matching grant would cause an over-investment in research from a nationalperspective. However, if demand is less than perfectly elastic, and research causes apivotal supply shift, the producer share of benefits is smaller than their share ofcosts of the levy, and they will under-invest in research from a national point ofview. A matching grant can be justified in such cases, however the magnitude of theoptimal grant is sensitive to market conditions.
