This paper models supply response in U.S. agriculture using disaggregated output data and tests statistically key assumptions traditionally maintained in agricultural supply studies. Following Vasavada and Chambers; Shumway; and Ball, we use U.S.-level data, 1948-1999 to estimate a multiproduct...

Productive utilization of resources has enabled American agriculture to supply the nation with vast quantities of food at a high level of efficiency. However, the USDA shows that 2011 pesticide expenses increased by about $100 million resulting from a slight increase of planted acres and a...

This paper provides a farm sector comparison of levels of capital input for fourteen OECD countries for the period 1973-2002. The starting point for construction of a measure of capital input is the measurement of capital stock. Estimates of depreciable capital are derived by representing...

This paper starts with the basic premise that the conventional measures of productivity growth, which ignore joint production of good and bad outputs, are biased. We then construct an alternative productivity growth measure using activity analysis. An application to U.S. agriculture demonstrates...

This paper provides a farm sector comparison of levels of capital input for fourteen OECD countries for the period 1973-2002. The starting point for construction of a measure of capital input is the measurement of capital stock. Estimates of depreciable capital are derived by representing...

This study examines the implications of the short-run specification of the standard, static translog cost function along with the possible implications of non-stationarity by estimating a dynamic translog cost specification complete with dynamic share equations for the U.S. using an empirical...

Increased productivity is a key to a healthy and thriving economy. Consequently, the trend in productivity, economywide, is one of the most closely watched of our common economic performance indicators. Agriculture, in particular, has been a very successful sector of the U.S. economy in terms of...

This study provides estimates of the growth and relative levels of agricultural productivity for the 48 contiguous States for the period 1960 to 1996. For the full 1960-96 period, every State exhibits a positive and generally substantial average annual rate of productivity growth. There is...

This study uses a cost-function-based model of production processes in U.S. agriculture to represent producers' input and output decisions, and the implied costs of reductions in risk associated with leaching and runoff from agricultural chemical use. The model facilitates evaluation of the...

Agricultural production is known to have environmental impacts, both adverse and beneficial, and it is desirable to incorporate at least some of these impacts in an environmentally sensitive productivity index. In this paper, we construct indicators of water contamination from the use of...