Best techniques leave little room for substitution. A new critique of the production function

Götz Kersting and Bertram Schefold

Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 2021, vol. 58, issue C, 509-533

Abstract: Samuelson assumed a linear wage curve for each of a continuum of techniques such that their envelope was a monotonically falling wage curve for the economy, from which an aggregate production function fulfilling the marginal productivity conditions could be derived. But the capital intensities of the techniques chosen at each rate of profit are not necessarily lower at higher rates of profit, if the wage curves are not linear, a possibility exemplified by reswitching. This critique of the capital controversy does not rule out Samuelson’s construction as an approximation, since the paradoxes have been shown to be rare. Instead, a possibility is likely that has so far not been noticed: the envelope of the wage curves will in the relevant range of the rate of profit be dominated by a small number of efficient techniques of approximately equal capital intensity, leaving little room for substitution. A new mathematical theorem demonstrates that the expected number of techniques that appear on the envelope is given by (2/3) lns. Numerical experiments and empirical investigations confirm the analysis.

Keywords: Capital theory; Production function; Substitution; Reswitching (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0954349X21000588
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:streco:v:58:y:2021:i:c:p:509-533

DOI: 10.1016/j.strueco.2021.05.007

Access Statistics for this article

Structural Change and Economic Dynamics is currently edited by F. Duchin, H. Hagemann, M. Landesmann, R. Scazzieri, A. Steenge and B. Verspagen

More articles in Structural Change and Economic Dynamics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().