Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-vt8vv Total loading time: 0.001 Render date: 2024-08-18T01:37:24.288Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Frontier Production Function: A Tool for Improved Decision Making

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2017

Richard A. King
Richard A. King*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics and Business, North Carolina State University, and President, American Agricultural Economics Association
Get access

Extract

A frontier production function may be thought of as a “best practice” production function (Førsund and Jansen) or a function that expresses the maximum product obtainable from various combinations of factors given the existing state of technical knowledge. It is the theoretical counterpart to farm enterprise budgets or processing plant budgets derived by economic engineering methods to describe the best possible production processes.

Type
Invited Papers
Information
Journal of the Northeastern Agricultural Economics Council , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , October 1980 , pp. 1 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aigner, D. J., and Chu, S. F. “On Estimating the Industry Production Function.” American Economic Review, 58(1968): 226–239.Google Scholar
Aigner, D. J., Lovell, C. A. K., and Schmidt, P. “Formulation and Estimation of Stochastic Frontier Production Function Models.” Journal of Econometrica, 6(1977): 21–37.Google Scholar
Berndt, Ernst R. “Aggregate Energy, Efficiency and Productivity Measurement.” Annual Energy Review, 3(1978): 225–273.Google Scholar
Berndt, Ernst R., and Khaled, Mohammed S. “Parametric Productivity Measurement and Choice among Flexible Functional Forms.” Journal of Political Economy, 87(1979): 1220–1245.Google Scholar
Binswanger, Hans P. “The Measurement of Technical Change Biases with Many Factors of Production.” American Economic Review, 64(1974): 964–976.Google Scholar
Boles, J. N. “Efficiency Squared—Efficient Computation of Efficiency Indexes,” pp. 11–18. In Waananen, M. V. (ed.), Western Farm Economics Association, Proceedings, 1966, Department of Agricultural Economics, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, January, 1967.Google Scholar
Bressler, R. G. “The Measurement of Productive Efficiency,” pp. 1–10. In Waananen, M. V. (ed.). Western Farm Economics Association, Proceedings, 1966, Department of Agricultural Economics, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, January, 1967.Google Scholar
Bressler, R. G. Jr., and King, R. A. Markets, Prices and Interregional Trade. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1970.Google Scholar
Farrell, Maurice J. “The Measurement of Productive Efficiency.” Journal of The Royal Statistical Society, Vol. 120, Part III, Series A, 1957, pp. 253–281.Google Scholar
Førsund, Finn R., and Hjalmarsson, Lennart. “Frontier Production Functions and Technical Progress: A Study of General Milk Processing in Swedish Diary Plants.” Econometrica, 47(1979): 883–900.Google Scholar
Førsund, F. R., and Jansen, E. S. “On Estimating Average and Best Practice Homothetic Production Functions via Cost Functions.” International Economic Review, 18(1977): 463–476.Google Scholar
Frisch, R. Theory of Production. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1965.Google Scholar
Ladd, G. W., and Gibson, C. “Microeconomics of Technical Change: What's a Better Animal Worth?” American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 60(1978): 236–240.Google Scholar
Lopez, R. E. “The Structure of Production and the Derived Demand for Inputs in Canadian Agriculture.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 62(1980): 38–45.Google Scholar
Mathia, Gene A., and Hammond, Leigh H. “Measuring Economic Efficiency: An Application to Apple Marketing Facilities,” pp. 195–212. In Proceedings, Marketing Section, Association of Southern Agricultural Workers, January 30—February 1, 1967. Department of Agricultural Economics, Texas Technological College, Lubbock, Texas.Google Scholar
Nerlove, Marc. “Returns to Scale in Electricity Supply. In Christ, C., et al. (eds.), Measurement in Economics: Studies in Mathematical Economics and Econometrics in Memory of Yehuda Grünfeld. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1963.Google Scholar
Nerlove, Marc, Estimation and Identification of Cobb-Douglas Production Functions. Chicago: Rand McNally and Company, 1965, Chapter 5.Google Scholar
Nerlove, Marc, “Recent Empirical Studies of the CES and Related Production Functions,” pp. 55–122. In Brown, Murray (ed.) The Theory and Empirical Analysis of Production, NBER, New York: Columbia University Press, 1967.Google Scholar
Ringstad, V. “Some Empirical Evidence on the Decreasing Scale Elasticity.” Econometrica, 42(1974): 87–101.Google Scholar
Salter, W. E. G. Productivity and Technical Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960.Google Scholar
Seitz, W. D. “The Measurement of Efficiency Relative to a Frontier Production Function.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 52(1970): 505–511.Google Scholar
Timmer, C. P. “Using a Probabalistic Frontier Production Function to Measure Technical Efficiency.” Journal of Political Economy, 79(1971): 776–794.Google Scholar
Zellner, A., and Revankar, N. S. “Generalized Production Functions.” Review of Economic Studies, 36(1969): 241–250.Google Scholar