The green revolution in developing countries magnified concern about the efficient allocation of agricultural research resources and the distributional consequences of alternative research resource allocation and technology design strategies. These concerns are being increasingly reflected in the planning, management and research activities of the international agricultural research centres. In this paper a description is given of how economists at one centre contributed their expertise to the ex ante analysis of some key issues in this complex milieu, such as the determination of research goals and priorities, the small-large farm dichotomy or nexus, income distribution and employment effects, human nutritional considerations and farmer risk attitudes.