Allowing for the spillover benefits into other states, state-specific agricultural research investments generated national benefits of between USD 10 and USD 70 per research dollar, averaging USD 32 across the states. The marginal benefit-cost ratio for USDA intramural research was comparable, at USD 18 per dollar invested in research. In fact, however, these ratios are consistent with internal rates of return at the smaller end of the range compared with the general results in the literature as reviewed by Alston et al. ( Some internal rates of return are reported here to facilitate comparisons with other studies.