IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/ifweej/201119.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Uncertainty and capacity constraints: Reconsidering the aggregate production function

Author

Listed:
  • Gracia, Eduard

Abstract

The CobbDouglas function is today one of the most widely adopted assumptions in economic modeling, yet both its theoretical and empirical bases have long been under question. This paper builds an alternative function on very different (albeit also neoclassical) microfoundations aimed at both addressing those theoretical drawbacks and providing a better empirical fit than the CobbDouglas formula. The new model, unlike the CobbDouglas function, does not portray installed capacity as aggregate capital but as a sunk cost generating economic rents. An analysis of 1949-2008 annual U.S. growth data suggest this alternative model explains nearly 85 percent of GDP fluctuations and is empirically more robust than the CobbDouglas, whilst both contemporary and lagged aggregate capital are statistically rejected as explanatory variables. This lends support to the old Cambridge Critique”, according to which using value-weighted capital aggregates to explain production simply makes no sense. At face value, these results not only pose a question on any macroeconomic model assuming a CobbDouglas function but also point towards an alternative interpretation of phenomena such as the way monetary policy impacts productivity.

Suggested Citation

  • Gracia, Eduard, 2011. "Uncertainty and capacity constraints: Reconsidering the aggregate production function," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 5, pages 1-50.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:ifweej:201119
    DOI: 10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2011-19
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2011-19
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/52688/1/679412980.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2011-19?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Klette, Tor Jakob & Griliches, Zvi, 1996. "The Inconsistency of Common Scale Estimators When Output Prices Are Unobserved and Endogenous," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(4), pages 343-361, July-Aug..
    2. Joan Robinson, 1953. "The Production Function and the Theory of Capital," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 21(2), pages 81-106.
    3. Mizon, Grayham E & Richard, Jean-Francois, 1986. "The Encompassing Principle and Its Application to Testing Non-nested Hypotheses," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(3), pages 657-678, May.
    4. Avi J. Cohen, 2003. "Retrospectives: Whatever Happened to the Cambridge Capital Theory Controversies?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 199-214, Winter.
    5. D. W. Jorgenson & Z. Griliches, 1967. "The Explanation of Productivity Change," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 34(3), pages 249-283.
    6. A. Cohen & G. Harcourt., 2009. "Whatever Happened to the Cambridge Capital Theory Controversies?," VOPROSY ECONOMIKI, N.P. Redaktsiya zhurnala "Voprosy Economiki", vol. 8.
    7. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1982. "Time to Build and Aggregate Fluctuations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1345-1370, November.
    8. Paul M. Romer, 1987. "Crazy Explanations for the Productivity Slowdown," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1987, Volume 2, pages 163-210, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. E. H. Phelps Brown, 1957. "The Meaning of the Fitted Cobb-Douglas Function," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 71(4), pages 546-560.
    10. Herbert A. Simon & Ferdinand K. Levy, 1963. "A Note on the Cobb-Douglas Function," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 30(2), pages 93-94.
    11. Gary D. Hansen & Edward C. Prescott, 2005. "Capacity constraints, asymmetries, and the business cycle," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 8(4), pages 850-865, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gracia, Eduard, 2012. "Predicting the unpredictable: Forecastable bubbles and business cycles under rational expectations," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 6, pages 1-43.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jesus Felipe & F. Gerard Adams, 2005. ""A Theory of Production" The Estimation of the Cobb-Douglas Function: A Retrospective View," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 31(3), pages 427-445, Summer.
    2. G. C. Harcourt, 2015. "On the Cambridge, England, Critique of the Marginal Productivity Theory of Distribution," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 47(2), pages 243-255, June.
    3. Nadia Garbellini, 2018. "Inequality in the 21st Century:A Critical Analysis of Piketty`s Work," Working Papers Series 69, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    4. Jesus Felipe & John S.L. McCombie, 2013. "The Aggregate Production Function and the Measurement of Technical Change," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1975.
    5. S K Mishra, 2010. "A Brief History of Production Functions," The IUP Journal of Managerial Economics, IUP Publications, vol. 0(4), pages 6-34, November.
    6. Jonathan Temple, 2006. "Aggregate Production Functions and Growth Economics," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(3), pages 301-317.
    7. Voxi Heinrich S Amavilah, 2004. "Economic Performance in a Cross-Section of U.S. Native American Economies," GE, Growth, Math methods 0405003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. George Bitros, 2010. "The theorem of proportionality in contemporary capital theory: An assessment of its conceptual foundations," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 23(4), pages 367-401, December.
    9. Javier López-Bernardo & Félix López-Martínez & Engelbert Stockhammer, 2016. "A Post-Keynesian Response to Piketty's ‘Fundamental Contradiction of Capitalism’," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(2), pages 190-204, April.
    10. Labini, Paolo Sylos, 1995. "Why the interpretation of the Cobb-Douglas production function must be radically changed," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 485-504, December.
    11. Dennis O. Kundisch & Neeraj Mittal & Barrie R. Nault, 2014. "Research Commentary —Using Income Accounting as the Theoretical Basis for Measuring IT Productivity," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 25(3), pages 449-467, September.
    12. David Laidler, 2011. "Natural Hazards: Some Pitfalls on the Path to a Neutral Interest Rate," C.D. Howe Institute Backgrounder, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 140, July.
    13. Santos, João & Domingos, Tiago & Sousa, Tânia & St. Aubyn, Miguel, 2016. "Does a small cost share reflect a negligible role for energy in economic production? Testing for aggregate production functions including capital, labor, and useful exergy through a cointegration-base," MPRA Paper 70850, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Dongya Koh & Raül Santaeulàlia-Llopis, 2017. "Countercyclical Elasticity of Substitution," Working Papers 946, Barcelona School of Economics.
    15. Jacques Mairesse & Rozenn Desplatz, 2003. "Econométrie de la production sur données de panel et dispersion des prix de production quels biais d'estimation ?," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 113(6), pages 749-772.
    16. Mazouch, P. & Krejčí, I., 2016. "The Analysis of the Age Structure of Regional Fixed Capital in the Agriculture," AGRIS on-line Papers in Economics and Informatics, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Faculty of Economics and Management, vol. 8(2), pages 1-13, June.
    17. Wu, Mingran & Zhao, Min & Wu, Zhaodan, 2019. "Evaluation of development level and economic contribution ratio of science and technology innovation in eastern China," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    18. Blair Fix, 2019. "The Aggregation Problem: Implications for Ecological and Biophysical Economics," Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 1-15, March.
    19. Susanto Basu & John Fernald, 2001. "Why Is Productivity Procyclical? Why Do We Care?," NBER Chapters, in: New Developments in Productivity Analysis, pages 225-302, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    production function; CobbDouglas; capital controversy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity
    • E23 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Production

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:ifweej:201119. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iwkiede.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.