Análisis de la oferta de productos, la demanda de insumos y la tecnología del sector agropecuario argentino empleando una función de beneficios

Abstract

This paper utilizes a single product aggregate translog profit function with several inputs to explore the structure of agricultural technology estimating output supply and input demand elasticities and measuring biased technical change. The econometric model of simultaneous equations obtained using duality theory has been estimated for the whole Argentine agricultural sector employing time series of output, input and prices from 1960 to 1985. The most important empirical results show that the translog profit function is well behaved (symmetric, strictly increasing and convex in variable input prices and strictly decreasing in fixed inputs), output supply and input demand own-price elasticities have the expected sign, cross effects are negligible and technical change is labor saving.