Showing papers on "Productivity model published in 1975"

Measuring productivity change in u.s. agriculture

Abstract: alternative estimate of productivity in U.S. agriculture for the period 1939 to 1972 with the same To understand the sources of change in data used to compute the offical USDA index. productivity, that appropriate public policy and A production function approach is taken in this programs can be developed to increase produc- study. Results will be compared with the offical tivity growth, a reliable and updated measure USDA index, and the difference between the two is needed. The term "productivity" discussed will be discussed. here refers to total factor productivity, or the The paper is divided into five sections. In ratio of value of total agricultural output to that section II, different measures of total factor proof all inputs used in agricultural production. ductivity are presented. Procedures for selecting The first comprehensive work on the meas- the form of production function are discussed in urement of productivity change in U.S. agri- section III. The parameters of the Cobb-Douglas culture was done by Loomis and Barton [9] in production function are estimated in section IV 1961. Since then, this index has been updated and results of the estimation are used to conannually as an offical USDA agricultural pro- struct a productivity index in section V. ductivity index [19]. The weakness of using index Summary and conclusions are presented in the numbers lies in the arithmetic formula used. final section. It implies a specific functional form of the pro