Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Beyond Cobb-Douglas: Estimation of a CES Production Function with Factor Augmenting Technology

Contents:

Author Info

  • Devesh Raval
Registered author(s):

    Abstract

    Both the recent literature on production function identification and a considerable body of other empirical work on firm expansion assume a Cobb-Douglas production function. Under this assumption, all technical differences are Hicks neutral. I provide evidence from US manufacturing plants against Cobb-Douglas and present an alternative production function that better fits the data. A Cobb Douglas production function has two empirical implications that I show do not hold in the data: a constant cost share of capital and strong comovement in labor productivity and capital productivity (revenue per unit of capital). Within four digit industries, differences in cost shares of capital are persistent over time. Both the capital share and labor productivity increase with revenue, but capital productivity does not. A CES production function with labor augmenting differences and an elasticity of substitution between labor and capital less than one can account for these facts. To identify the labor capital elasticity, I use variation in wages across local labor markets. Since the capital cost to labor cost ratio falls with local area wages, I strongly reject Cobb-Douglas: capital and labor are complements. Now productivity differences are no longer neutral, which has implications on how productivity affects firms’ decisions to expand or contract. Non neutral technical improvements will result in higher stocks of capital but not necessarily more hiring of labor. Specifying the correct form of the production function is more generally important for empirical work, as I demonstrate by applying my methodology to address questions of misallocation of capital.

    Download Info

    If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
    File URL: ftp://ftp2.census.gov/ces/wp/2011/CES-WP-11-05.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2011
    Download Restriction: no

    Bibliographic Info

    Paper provided by Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau in its series Working Papers with number 11-05.

    as in new window
    Length: 60 pages
    Date of creation: Feb 2011
    Date of revision:
    Handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:11-05

    Contact details of provider:
    Postal: 4600 Silver Hill Road, Washington, DC 20233
    Phone: (301) 763-6460
    Fax: (301) 763-5935
    Email:
    Web page: http://www.census.gov/ces
    More information through EDIRC

    Related research

    Keywords:

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    References

    References listed on IDEAS
    Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
    as in new window
    1. Richard Rogerson & Diego Restuccia, 2004. "Policy Distortions and Aggregate Productivity with Heterogeneous Plants," 2004 Meeting Papers 69, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    2. Miguel A. León-Ledesma & Peter McAdam & Alpo Willman, 2009. "Identifying the elasticity of substitution with biased technical change," Working Paper Series 1001, European Central Bank.
    3. Thomas J. Holmes, 1996. "The effects of state policies on the location of industry: evidence from state borders," Staff Report 205, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    4. Lucia Foster & John Haltiwanger & Chad Syverson, 2005. "Reallocation, Firm Turnover, and Efficiency: Selection on Productivity or Profitability?," Working Papers 05-11, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    5. Daniel Yi Xu & Virgiliu Midrigan, 2009. "Accounting for Plant-level Misallocation," 2009 Meeting Papers 223, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    6. Chirinko, Robert S., 2008. "[sigma]: The long and short of it," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 671-686, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. [??]??????????????
      by himaginary in himaginaryの日記 on 2012-08-28 07:00:00

    Lists

    This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:11-05

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Fariha Kamal).

    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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

    If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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