تقدير الطلب على عنصر العمل البشرى فى الزراعة المصرية طبقاً للمنهج الثنائى[Estimation of Demand on Human Labor Input in the Egyptian Agricultural According to Dual Approach]

Human labor input is considered as one of the most important inputs in the economy, especially in the agricultural sector, that contributes in increasing production and employment, so the cycle of economic development must be pushed to achieve the most economic efficiency from the agricultural labor input. The main research problem and the objective of the study, can be summarized in the nature of demand on the labor input, and the relations among labor input with the other inputs. To achieve and exploring the objectives, the study used the dual approach of profit and cost functions, and estimated two types of models to each one, the first is: Cobb-Douglas and Transcendental Logarithmic profit functions, that take into account including the prices of variable inputs only, i.e., labor wage, and the quantities of fixed inputs, i.e., capital and land. The second is: Cobb-Douglas and Transcendental Logarithmic cost functions, that take into account including the prices of variable and fixed inputs, i.e., labor wage and price of capital, in addition inclusion the value of production. To derive the demand on labor input, the study used Zellner’s method of restricted seemingly unrelated regressions (RSUR), to capture the restrictions available among different equations in the model. Data were collected from different sources, through the period subject to analysis (1990-2006). The general wholesale price index (2000=100), was used to deflate the price variables. The results of the study, showed that, there was a negative relation between the wage and labor, according to the own price elasticities of demand, also there was substitution between labor and capital, according to the cross price elasticities of demand, tended to the labor input, as a result of labor intensity, and may be due to increasing the cost of technology, especially in the Egyptian small farms. The hidden unemployment in the Egyptian agricultural sector didn’t exist. The results indicated that, the value of marginal product of labor, was greater than the labor farm wage, so this reflects the fact of efficiency of using human labor input in the Egyptian agriculture. Finally, the study recommended to apply technological tools with non intensive capital, to encourage the demand on human labor, investing in the agricultural projects that capture human labor, and increasing the wages that reflect the real value of marginal product of labor and his productivity to achieve the efficiency of human labor input in the Egyptian agricultural sector.