Capital-labor substitution and economic efficiency
TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed a method to improve the quality of the service provided by the service provider by using the information of the user's interaction with the provider and the provider.
Abstract: Обсуждаются следующие темы: чистая теория производства, функциональное распределение дохода, технический прогресс, источники международных конкурентных преимуществ. Анализируются эластичность замещения между трудом и капиталом в обрабатывающей промышленности; производственные функции различного типа.
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TL;DR: Coupling dynamic population ecology and economic growth models reveals how to build for resilience in human health and subsistence by coupling simple dynamic models of population ecology with those for economic growth.
Abstract: The world’s rural poor rely heavily on their immediate natural environment for subsistence and suffer high rates of morbidity and mortality from infectious diseases. We present a general framework for modelling subsistence and health of the rural poor by coupling simple dynamic models of population ecology with those for economic growth. The models show that feedbacks between the biological and economic systems can lead to a state of persistent poverty. Analyses of a wide range of specific systems under alternative assumptions show the existence of three possible regimes corresponding to a globally stable development equilibrium, a globally stable poverty equilibrium and bistability. Bistability consistently emerges as a property of generalized disease–economic systems for about a fifth of the feasible parameter space. The overall proportion of parameters leading to poverty is larger than that resulting in healthy/wealthy development. All the systems are found to be most sensitive to human disease parameters. The framework highlights feedbacks, processes and parameters that are important to measure in studies of rural poverty to identify effective pathways towards sustainable development. Feedback between biological and economic systems may lead to persistent poverty traps. Coupling dynamic population ecology and economic growth models reveals how to build for resilience in human health and subsistence.
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the relationship between Canadian public infrastructure and private output using a Constant Elasticity and SubstitutionTranslog (CES-TL) cost model to describe the interaction of the public and private sectors.
Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between Canadian public infrastructure and private output using a Constant Elasticity and Substitution-Translog (CES-TL) cost model to describe the interaction of the public and private sectors. The CES-TL was first specified by Pollak et al. (1984). We find public capital a substitute for private capital within the Canadian manufacturing sector. Additionally, the services of public capital enhance the productivity of private capital. Canadian manufacturing costs are characterized by economies of scale, indicating that less than optimal plant sizes dominated Canadian manufacturing sector during the study period. Advances in disembodied technical progress are also indicated.
31 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors developed a theoretical model to examine the relationship between the input elasticity of substitution and both farm total factor productivity and size, and found that farms with higher elasticities of substitution tend to grow larger and become more productive.
Abstract: This paper develops a theoretical model to examine the relationship between the input elasticity of (technical) substitution and both farm total factor productivity and size. In the presence of ongoing technical change and its factor bias, the ‘income effect’ arising from farms' cost minimising behaviour enables them to increase productivity by saving inputs or, through the dual equivalent, enlarging farm size. As such, farms with higher elasticities of substitution tend to grow larger and become more productive, which provides a new mechanism through which farm heterogeneity in productivity growth can be examined. Empirical evidence from Australian broadacre agriculture supports this theory and points to important policy implications.
31 citations
Cites methods or result from "Capital-labor substitution and econ..."
...This observation is consistent with previous literature describing capital and labour use in the economy as a whole (Arrow et al. 1961; Barro and Sala-i-Martin 1995)....
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...Defining output per capita and the capital–labour ratio as y = Y/L and k = K/L respectively, we can normalise the CES function as y = A[akw+(1a)]1/w with the assumption of constant returns to scale (Arrow et al. 1961)....
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Posted Content•
01 Jan 1989
TL;DR: In this paper, evidence is provided on customer response in Pacific Gas and Electric's voluntary time-of-use (TOU) rate experiment, and volunteers have a greater ability to shift usage in response to TOU rates than comparable customers on mandatory rates.
Abstract: Time-of-use (TOU) pricing has emerged in recent years as a popular rate program, offering utilities both a more efficient pricing mechanism and a tool for load management. Initial experiments with TOU pricing were generally designed to provide evidence on customer response to mandatory TOU rates, while residential TOU rates are currently being applied on a voluntary basis. In this paper evidence is provided on customer response in Pacific Gas and Electric's voluntary TOU rate experiment. Comparing the results to those obtained in earlier mandatory experiments, volunteers are found to have a greater ability to shift usage in response to TOU rates than comparable customers on mandatory rates.
31 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a detailed analysis of Kenyan residential building, Gordon Hughes stated that "housing projects cannot be considered a particularly good way of generating employment for unskilled workers unless... the requisite supply of skilled labor is assured."
Abstract: As a trustworthy progenitor ofjobs, the construction sector has been in and out of favor with economists. Some decades ago many agreed with Adam Smith that "no species of skilled labor . .. seems more easy to learn than that of masons or bricklayers."' As an extra advantage, the complementarity of such work with other inputs, except for materials, was thought to be low. Thus Arthur Lewis wrote in the 1950s that "buildings can be created by human labor with hardly any capital to speak of,'"2 and Nurkse found construction a splendid outlet for "surplus labor,"'3 the ideal entry chamber for rural-urban migrants. "On the whole," wrote W. B. Reddaway, "this is an industry which has relatively little in the way of 'supply difficulties.' "4 With experience, however, came doubts about the ease of substituting unskilled labor for other factors of production in making buildings. Summarizing World Bank experience, Albert Waterston noted unexpectedly high costs, long delays, "the use of defective or other improper materials, poor workmanship," and so forth resulting in "works or facilities which either cannot perform as expected or soon deteriorate."'' After a detailed analysis of Kenyan residential building, Gordon Hughes stated that "housing projects cannot be considered a particularly good way of generating employment for unskilled workers unless . . . the requisite supply of skilled labor is assured. This would be difficult at the present time in Kenya, and the position would seem to be the same in many other African countries."6 A group of experts convened in 1976 by the United Nations Center for Human Settlements, however, concluded that "it is generally agreed that it is relatively easy to train skilled labor through, for example, 9 to 12 month training programs at a government training center. The main difficulties
31 citations
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed a method to improve the performance of the system by using the information of the user's interaction with the system and the system itself, including the interaction between the two parties.
Abstract: В статье производится анализ агрегированной производственной функции, вводится аппарат, позволяющий различать движение вдоль такой функции от ее сдвигов. На основании сделанных в статье предположений делаются выводы о характере технического прогресса и технологических изменений. Существенное внимание уделяется вариантам применения концепции агрегированной производственной функции.
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01 Jan 1956TL;DR: In this paper, a very brief treatment of three questions relating to the history of our economic growth since the Civil War is given, namely: (1) How large has been the net increase of aggregate output per capita, and to what extent has this increase been obtained as a result of greater labor or capital input on the one hand and of a rise in productivity on the other? (2) Is there evidence of retardation, or conceivably acceleration, in the growth of per capita output? (3) Have there been fluctuations in the rate of growth of output, apart
Abstract: Introduction This paper is a very brief treatment of three questions relating to the history of our economic growth since the Civil War: (1) How large has been the net increase of aggregate output per capita, and to what extent has this increase been obtained as a result of greater labor or capital input on the one hand and of a rise in productivity on the other? (2) Is there evidence of retardation, or conceivably acceleration, in the growth of per capita output? (3) Have there been fluctuations in the rate of growth of output, apart from the shortterm fluctuations of business cycles, and, if so, what is the significance of these swings? The answers to these three questions, to the extent that they can be given, represent, of course, only a tiny fraction of the historical experience relevant to the problems of growth. Even so, anyone acquainted with their complexity will realize that no one of them, much less all three, can be treated satisfactorily in a short space. I shall have to pronounce upon them somewhat arbitrarily. My ability to deal with them at all is a reflection of one of the more important, though one of the less obvious, of the many aspects of our growing wealth, namely, the accumulation of historical statistics in this country during the last generation. For the most part, the figures which I present or which underlie my qualitative statements are taken directly from tables of estimates of national product, labor force, productivity, and the like compiled by others.
1,031 citations
903 citations