Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/206708 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
1990
Citation: 
[Journal:] Economics Letters [ISSN:] 0165-1765 [Volume:] 33 [Issue:] 1 (May) [Publisher:] Elsevier [Place:] Amsterdam [Year:] 1990 [Pages:] 41-45
Publisher: 
Elsevier, Amsterdam
Abstract: 
New estimates of an aggregate long-term production function for the post-war U.S. economy are reported. The results indicate that this long-term aggregate production function exhibits a slight but statistically significant increasing returns to scale. Since virtually all econometric growth studies assume constant returns to scale, my finding raises serious doubts about the validity of this common practice. I also find that since the war real output has become more sensitive to changes in capital and less sensitive to changes in labor. In particular, I show that the long-run capital and labor elasticities of real output are both in the range of 0.44–0.55. Similar estimates for the capital and labor elasticities of output from earlier studies covering pre-war and the inter-war periods are 0.25 and 0.75, respectively.
Subjects: 
Aggregate Production Function
Cobb-Douglas Production Function
Returns to Scale
Long-Term
Increasing Returns to Scale
LR Capital Elasticity of Output
LR Labor Elasticity of Output
Estimates of Technical Progress
JEL: 
E10
E22
E23
E24
E25
O30
O40
O47
O51
Published Version’s DOI: 
Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Accepted Manuscript (Postprint)
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