The Productivity Effects of Extension Appointments in Land-Grant Colleges

Abstract

This article analyzes the primary activities of agricultural college faculty with and without extension appointments using survey data. The evidence suggests that differences between extension professors and others in agricultural colleges in terms of research production are small for minor extension appointments, but show significant and increasing trade-offs between extension and research outputs above a 40% extension appointment. The evidence is broadly suggestive of the potential for gains from exploiting complementarities between extension and research rather than from pursuing high levels of specialization. The work concludes with implications for the role of in Cooperative Extension. the past several decades, commentators and experts have debated the role and function of Cooperative Extension in land-grant universities, and have even called into question its very survival (Hoag; Ilvento; National Research Council; Peters; Wolf and Zilberman). Budgetary pressures, an expanding scope of thematic activities, a decline in the relative importance of agriculture, growing private extension services, and demands for better integration of research and extension have all been factors driving discussions on the future of Cooperative Extension. Significant changes in organizational form and direction have been discussed, but the literature has paid relatively little attention to the productivity of state specialists - in particular, tenure-track faculty with extension appointments - in the Land-Grant system.1 Some have viewed these as the intellectual cutting edge of the Cooperative Extension system because their appointments require scholarly research explicitly oriented toward concerns of the public and private clientele of the system (see e.g., Radhakrishna; Woeste, Waddill, and Arlington). Certainly, who are, how they perform in research and extension, and how