The estimation of production functions suffers from an unresolved identification problem caused by flexible inputs, such as intermediate inputs. We develop an identification strategy for production functions based on a transformation of the firm's short-run first order condition that solves the...

The estimation of production functions suffers from an unresolved identification problem caused by flexible inputs, such as intermediate inputs. We develop an identification strategy for production functions based on a transformation of the firm's short-run first order condition that solves the...

We study the nonparametric identification of gross output production functions under the environment of the commonly employed proxy variable methods. We show that applying these methods to gross output requires additional sources of variation in the demand for flexible inputs (e.g., prices)....