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Productivity Growth and Input Mix Changes in Food Processing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2017

Adesoji O. Adelaja*
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural Economics and Marketing, Cook College, Rutgers University
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Extract

To examine productivity growth in New Jersey's food-processing sector, this study conducts a joint analysis of total and partial factor productivity indexes. Results indicate growing material intensity, declining labor and capital intensities, and relatively slow material productivity growth. However, due to the high cost share of material inputs, material productivity growth contributed more to total factor productivity growth than did growth in the productivity of any other input. In fact, almost half of the growth in overall productivity is attributed to material productivity growth. Results also suggest that the 1973 decline in total factor productivity was characterized by greater decline in material productivity than in the productivities of labor and capital.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association 

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Footnotes

The author wishes to thank Susan Howard for her word-processing assistance. New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station Publication no. D-02134-5-91, supported by a grant from the New Jersey Department of Agriculture and state experiment station funds appropriated under the Hatch and McIntire-Stennis Acts.

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