Size and Productivity in the U.S. Milling and Baking Industries

From the late 1950s through mid-1990s, productivity growth in U.S. grain milling and feed manufacturing has been consistently strong and positive. In grain milling, approximately 15% of the growth is due to size economies. Technical change has been capital-using, increasingly material-saving, and, in recent years, decreasingly labor-saving or increasingly labor-using. The quality of capital has risen relative to that of labor and materials. In all but the baking industry, capital intensification and incentives for plant size growth remain unabated.