Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
The MIT Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Review of
Economics and Statistics.
http://www.jstor.org
I Ik
q=-+WK- (2a)
q A k
q= F t + Wk
k (2b) The natural thing to do, for small changes,
q F Zt k is to approximatethe period 2 curve by its tan-
It can be shown, by integrating a partial dif- gent at P., (or the period i curve by its tangent
at P1). This yields an approximatelycorrected
ferential equation, that if F/F is independent
point P1,, and an estimate for A A/A, namely
of K and L (actually under constant returns to
scale only K/L matters) then (i) has the spe- P12P11qj * But k1P12 = q.>- q/3k A k and
cial form (ia) and shifts in the production hence P12PI = q2 - q1- 3q/3k A k = A q
- 3q/3k Ak and A A/A = P12P1/qj = A q/q -
function are neutral. If in addition F/F is con-
stant in time, say equal to a, then A(t) = el' 3q/3k (k/q) A k/k= A q/q-w, A k/k which
(I + a)'.
is exactly the content of (2a). The not-neces-
or in discrete approximationA (t)
sarily-neutral case is a bit more complicated,
The case of neutral shifts and constant re-
but basically similar.
turns to scale is now easily handled graphically.
2
The production function is completely repre- Professors Wassily Leontief and William Fellner inde-
pendently pointed out to me that this "first-order" approxi-
sented by a graph of q against k (analogously mation could in principle be improved. After estimating
to the fact that if we know the unit-output a production function corrected for technical change (see
below), one could go back and use it to provide a second
isoquant, we know the whole map). The approximation to the shift series, and on into further itera-
trouble is that this function is shifting in time, tions.
but I have no doubt that refinementof this and on whether these relative shifts appear to be
the capital time-series would produce neater re- neutral or not. Such a calculation is made in
sults. Table i and shown in Chart 2. Thence, by arbi-
In any case, in (2a) or (2b) one can replace trarily setting A (I909) = i and using the fact
the time-derivatives by year-to-year changes that A (t + i) = A (t) (I + A A (t)/A(t)) one
and calculate A q/q - Wk A k/k. The result can successively reconstruct the A (t) time
is an estimate of A F/F or A A/A, depending series, which is shown in Chart 3.