A sequel to his frequently cited Cost and Production Functions (1953), this book offers a unified, comprehensive treatment of these functions which underlie the economic theory of production. The approach is axiomatic for a definition of technology, by mappings of input vectors into subsets of output vectors that represent the unconstrained technical possibilities of production. To provide a completely general means of characterizing a technology, an alternative to the production function, called the Distance Function, is introduced. The duality between cost function and production function is developed by introducing a cost correspondence, showing that these two functions are given in terms of each other by dual minimum problems. The special class of production structures called Homothetic is given more general definition and extended to technologies with multiple outputs. Originally published in 1971. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Production theory and the theory of cost both belong to the central areas of business administration, for all considerations concerning the economic organization of industrial manufacturing processes start from these. Two developments in the past 30 years have had a considerable influence on the structure and the concentration on points of emphasis in this book. I am referring to findings from KOOPMANS' activity analysis and to the formulation by GUTENBERG of a production function concept that focuses on industrial production processes. Activity analysis has made it possible to develop, from a uniform approach, different types of production functions which describe the concrete principles of production in the productive sector of a business enterprise; this has created a common basis for all production concepts in business administration. The Gutenberg Production Function with its different kinds of adjustment to a changing output has opened up a flexibility to theoretical and practical considerations that gave rise to a large number of additional studies in this area. Considerations in cost theory were in particular need of considerable extensions in the direction of cost minimal combined adjustment processes. By means of the organization of its contents, this book will take both approaches into due account. In that way, it is vastly different from other books dealing with the same subject. As a matter of course, traditional analytical methods and ways of thinking also constitute a large part of the book.

This authoritative and stimulating book represents a fundamental critique of the aggregate production function, a concept widely used in macroeconomics.

Production economics is that branch of microeconomics that examines producer decisions. This book focuses on the empirical estimation of these relationships using primal, dual, and differential specifications. The primal specification models production decisions based on the production function — estimation of the input/output relationship and the derivation of optimization behavior from this technical relationship. The dual approach estimates production decisions using economic information such as input and output prices. The textbook then develops the linkages between these relationships. The differential specification is an alternative approach derived from changes in the first-order conditions from cost minimizing behavior. In each case, the theoretical development is followed by different empirical specifications that can be used to estimate the producer's choice.

A sequel to his frequently cited Cost and Production Functions (1953), this book offers a unified, comprehensive treatment of these functions which underlie the economic theory of production. The approach is axiomatic for a definition of technology, by mappings of input vectors into subsets of output vectors that represent the unconstrained technical possibilities of production. To provide a completely general means of characterizing a technology, an alternative to the production function, called the Distance Function, is introduced. The duality between cost function and production function is developed by introducing a cost correspondence, showing that these two functions are given in terms of each other by dual minimum problems. The special class of production structures called Homothetic is given more general definition and extended to technologies with multiple outputs. Originally published in 1971. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.