The RFBerlin Applied Economics Seminar series brings leading researchers to Berlin to share their latest work and engage with our community. We are pleased to welcome Jacob Moscona (MIT) for this session.

Jacob Moscona is 3M Career Development Assistant Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research spans development economics, political economy, and environmental economics, with a focus on innovation, the environment, and institutions. His work examines the forces shaping technological progress and global productivity differences, as well as the political economy of development, including how social organization and institutions influence conflict and cooperation.

Event Topic:

Public R&D Meets Economic Development: Embrapa and Brazil’s Agricultural Revolution

Can public R&D in developing countries raise productivity? We study how Brazil’s Embrapa, a public research corporation founded in 1973 to develop locally relevant agricultural technologies, shaped agricultural development. Researcher-level microdata reveal that Embrapa shifted innovation toward staple crops and Brazil-specific ecology, with no decline in researcher productivity. Exploiting Embrapa’s staggered expansion alongside municipality-level variation in the ecological suitability of Embrapa’s innovation, we find significant increases in agricultural productivity concentrated in targeted staple crops. Our estimates imply that Embrapa raised aggregate agricultural productivity by 110% with a benefit-cost ratio of 17, driven by the applicability of Embrapa’s innovation across Brazil.

Event Details:

Date: 20 May 2026
Time: 14:00–15:15

Participation: the seminar is open to the public and targeted to an academic audience.

If you have any questions or need further information, feel free to contact us using the form or email us at [email protected]