Functional forms and educational production functions

Different functional forms are proposed and applied in the context of educational production functions. Policy implications of such an approach in terms of school interventions are discussed in the paper.     

Market behavior and the types of production functions

The paper presents a unified approach to theory and estimation of production functions based on a simple observation that any production function has a unique representation of its isoquants in terms of the differential equation which may be observable in market. Expressing the marginal rate of substitution between two inputs as the differential equation in these two inputs, various classes of production functions are obtained by integrating this differential equation. Not only does this general approach yield a systematic framework for all known forms but it also generates new types of production functions. Empirical application is also indicated.     

A note on aggregation of CES-type production functions

In this note we shall be concerned with the aggregation of the constant elasticity of substitution (CES) type of production function. In particular we will derive the error made by using the arithmetic averages as they are usually published, rather than the theoretically required averages.     

Differentiability of the cost functions is equivalent to strict quasiconcavity of the production functions

The assumption that cost functions are differentiable with respect to input prices is equivalent to the assumption that production functions are strictly quasiconcave.     

A class of changing elasticity of substitution production functions

This paper presents a new class of production functions with a changing elasticity of substitution between two input factors. Over a freely chosen number of intervals for the input factor intensity freely chosen elasticities of substitution can be imposed. The resulting production function can thus account for changing elasticities of substitution during the development of the factor intensity. The production function is applied in a calibration exercise and a novel normalization procedure is proposed. The theory behind this production technology builds on the functional normalization of CES production functions.     

On a generalization of a class of production functions

In Appl. Econ. Lett. 18 (2011), 1777–1784, as a natural generalization of some famous production models with two inputs, C.A. Ioan and G. Ioan introduced a new class of production functions with constant return to scale, called sum production function, and proved three theorems of characterization for such production models. In this article, we give new and more simple proofs of these theorems, extending also the results to the case of increased/decreased return to scale. The generalization to the case of an arbitrary number of inputs is also discussed.     

Efficient strategy-proof allocation functions in linear production economies

Summary. In a linear production model, we characterize the class of efficient and strategy-proof allocation functions, and the class of efficient and coalition strategy-proof allocation functions. In the former class, requiring equal treatment of equals allows us to identify a unique allocation function. This function is also the unique member of the latter class which satisfies uniform treatment of uniforms. Received: July 10, 1997 / Revised version: November 24, 1997     

Discriminating among alternative production functions in Polish industry

Large scale econometric models for both market-type and socialist centrally planned economies generally specify production relationships in the form of an aggregate production function. This paper addresses the problem of specifying the functional form of the production function for a socialist centrally planned economy: Poland. Three production functions, Cobb-Douglas, CES and VES, are estimated and a non-nested test for functional form is performed using a pooled cross section-time series regression technique. The estimates of the Cobb-Douglas specification are slightly superior to those of the CES and VES specifications, but the latter provide important detail for historical analysis and interesting implications for growth.     

The distribution approach to the aggregation of putty-clay production functions

The point of departure of the distribution approach is the efficiency distribution of the production units in an industry. From this distribution the full-capacity production function and the short-run aggregate production function of the industry are derived. The long-run production function of the industry then is derived from the full-capacity function and the short-run production function. Hence, in the context of the distribution approach the relation is analysed between the short-run, full-capacity and long-run aggregate production functions of the industry and the efficiency distribution (and related capacity distribution) of the production units in that industry. Finally, the distribution approach is applied for the case of the Japanese cotton spinning industry.     

Macro foundations of micro-economics

This paper attempts to circumvent the nonsense of the representative agent which arises in macroeconomics. It recognises that macro data are relevant to agents' decisions, and so excess demands should contain macro variables as arguments. The macro variables I consider are the price index, unemployment and GNP. This paper should be regarded as a tentative beginning to make macroeconomic theory literate. Received: September 19, 2001; revised version: July 24, 2002 RID="*" ID="*"I am delighted to contribute to this Festschrift for Mordecai now that he has reached the appropriate age.