The Application of Robust Regression to a Production Function Comparison – the Example of Swiss Corn

Robert Finger and Werner Hediger
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Werner Hediger: Center for Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability, University of Zurich, Switzerland

No 08-02, IED Working paper from IED Institute for Environmental Decisions, ETH Zurich

Abstract: The adequate representation of crop response functions is crucial for agri-environmental modeling and analysis. So far, the evaluation of such functions focused on the comparison of different functional forms. The perspective is expanded in this article by considering an alternative regression method. This is motivated by the fact that exceptional crop yield observations (outliers) can cause misleading results if least squares regression is applied. We show that such outliers are adequately treated if robust regression is used instead. The example of simulated Swiss corn yields shows that the use of robust regression narrows the range of optimal input levels across different functional forms and reduces potential costs of misspecification.

Keywords: production function estimation; production function comparison; robust regression; crop response (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2008-06
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Working Paper: The Application of Robust Regression to a Production Function Comparison – the Example of Swiss Corn (2007)
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