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Some results in growth theory based on the Cobb-Douglas production function model are generalized when the production function is chosen to be the Constant Elasticity of Substitution (CES) function. Such a generalization is of considerable interest because it is known that the Cobb-Douglas function cannot be used as a suitable model for some production technologies (like the US economy and climate changes). It is shown that in the steady state the growth rate of the output is equal to the Solow residual and that the capital deepening term becomes zero. The CES function is a homogeneous function of degree two and a result is obtained on the wage of a worker using the Euler’s theorem.

Consumption of supply in transportation systems has generally always followed a First-Come-First-Served (FCFS) rule. This article proposes new control policies based on the concept of envy-freeness which outperform FCFS in both efficiency and fairness. We call an allocation envy-free when no agent feels any other agent’s allocation to be better than their own, at the current price. Envy-free allocations are thus considered fair. Several new contributions are made: we first present a conceptual theoretical supply-demand framework which formally introduces the new supply paradigm. We propose and simulate a new problem, queue-jumping operations on highways, in which vehicles can skip positions in a queue and compensate the overtaken vehicles with a payment. We present a new concept, dynamic envy-freeness, and provide a new envy ranking criterion, Constant Elasticity of Substitution Envy Intensity (CESEI) that is applied to PEXIC, an exchange-based traffic signal control scheme.

Global economic analysis of energy and climate policy often uses an aggregate representation of the electricity sector (e.g., GTAP-E). However, disproportionate technological progress and policies across different generating technologies requires a more detailed representation that identifies and allows for substitution between generating technologies. GTAP-E-Power extends the GTAP-E model to include transmission and distribution as well as substitution between nuclear, coal, gas base load, gas peak load, oil base load, oil peak load, hydro base load, hydro peak load, wind, solar, and 'other' power. Electric power substitution is represented with a nested additive constant elasticity of substitution which, opposed to the traditional constant elasticity of substitution, ensures that the sum of demands for generation from each technology is equal to total demand for electricity generation. The primary purpose of GTAP-E-Power is to serve as guidance for implementing the GTAP-Power Data Base in a computable general equilibrium model with substitution between electricity generating technologies to inform economic, energy, and climate policy.

We estimate a structural model of optimal life-cycle housing and nonhousing con- sumption in the presence of labor income and house price uncertainties. The model postulates constant elasticity of substitution between housing service and nonhousing consumption and explicitly incorporates a housing adjustment cost. Our estimationts the cross-sectional and time-series household wealth and housing proles from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (1984 to 2005) reasonably well and suggests an intratemporal elasticity of substitution between housing and nonhousing consumption of 0.487. The low elasticity estimate is largely driven by moments conditional on state house prices and moments in the latter half of the sample period and is robust to different assumptions of housing adjustment cost. We then conduct policy analyses in which we let house price and income take values as those observed between 2006 and 2011. We show that the responses depend importantly on the housing adjustment cost and the elasticity of sub- stitution between housing and nonhousing consumption. In particular, compared with the benchmark, the impact of the shocks on homeownership rates is reduced, but the impact on nonhousing consumption is magnied when the house selling cost is sizable or when housing service and nonhousing consumption are highly substitutable.

An optimal control problem for nonlinear integral equations of special kind is analyzed. It considers a firm's investment into age-dependent capital under improving technology and limited substitutability among capital of different ages. We prove the existence of solutions and analyze their structure. It is shown that the initially bang-bang optimal investment switches to an interior one and eventually converges to a steady-state trajectory that represents balanced economic growth. The obtained analytic outcomes contribute to better understanding of investment policies under technological change.

We examine how inputs for health production, in particular, medical care and health-enhancing time, are combined to improve health. The estimated elasticity of substitution from a constant elasticity of substitution production function is significantly less than one for the working-age population, rejecting the unit elasticity of substitution used in previous studies. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In this paper, we examine the influence of monetary policy on the speed of convergence in a standard monetary growth model à la Sidrauski allowing for differences in the elasticity of substitution between factors of production. The respective changes in the rate of convergence and its sensitivities to the central model parameters are derived both analytically and numerically. By normalizing the constant elasticity of substitution (CES) production functions both outside the steady state and within the steady state, it is possible to distinguish between an efficiency and a distribution effect of a change in the elasticity of substitution. We show that monetary policy is the more effective, the lower is the elasticity of substitution, and that the impact of monetary policy on the speed of convergence is mainly channeled via the efficiency effect.

We investigate the effect of higher house prices or rental costs on family size. We provide a static model of a household's choice of family size assuming constant elasticity of substitution preferences between children, leisure, and other goods, and Cobb–Douglas household production of children using parental time and housing. We then explore the wealth and substitution effects that changing house prices or rental costs have on desired family size. Renters are predicted to have fewer children in response to higher rents. Home owners are predicted to have more children in response to higher house prices only if they have sufficient initial housing and low substitution between family size and other consumption, and fewer children otherwise. Finally, we provide exploratory correlations between the change in lagged house prices or rental costs and the change in number of children born to women using aggregated census units in New Zealand. We find weak negative correlations in both cases.

The constant elasticity of substitution production function describes the relationship between production results and production factors in the technological production process. The common production factors include capital and labor. In order to comprehensively reflect the input-output relationship, this paper generalizes the model and adds factors including energy, consumption, and import and export. With respect to estimating the parameters of the model, the paper proposes a high-precision and high-speed nonlinear regression method. The constant elasticity of substitution production function model is mainly used to calculate the contribution rates of economic growth factors, and this paper proposes a scientific and reliable calculating method. The final section of the paper proposes an empirical analysis of the contribution rates of Chinese economic growth factors.

This paper presents a new, non-calculus approach to solving the consumer’s utility–maximization problem with constant elasticity of substitution (CES) utility function, as well as with Cobb-Douglas utility function in case of \(n\ge 2\) commodities. Instead of using the Lagrange multiplier method or some other method based on differential calculus of several variables which might give complicated terms and equations difficult to handle, the utility–maximization problems are solved by using Jensen’s inequality and weighted arithmetic-geometric mean (weighted AM–GM) inequality. In comparison with calculus methods, such approach does not require checking first and second order conditions.

Personal carbon trading (PCT) is a downstream cap-and-trade scheme which could be used to reduce carbon emissions from the household sector. To explore the effectiveness of this scheme, it is necessary to investigate how consumers respond to allowance price change. In this paper, a general utility optimization (GUO) model and a constant elasticity of substitution (CES) utility function are proposed to examine the price, substitution and income effects of carbon allowance price changes. It is shown that higher income consumers are more sensitive to the allowance price changes than lower income consumers. Moreover, the short-run adjustment in consumers’ consumption of electricity in response to a change in allowance price would be lower than the long-run value. According to the sensitivity analysis, downward (upward) adjustments in the elasticity of substitution result in a positive (negative) effect on price effect. The findings in this study are used to draw policy implications. Suggestions for future research are also provided.

We investigate the influence of a tradable credits scheme (TCS) on travel demand and vehicle emissions, based on the vehicle miles travelled (VMT). With a microeconomic quantitative analysis scheme, a constant elasticity of substitution (CES) function is used as an approach to model the annual mileage for different travel purposes. An illustration is given for the effects of a TCS on emission mitigation based on historical data for Great Britain. A scenario analysis demonstrates that a TCS can achieve a target for reducing the number of private trips. Besides a movement of trips from the private car mode to public modes, there is also some trip restraint, with individuals choosing not to take some trips. Compared with Fowkes et al.’s research on road pricing in London, the research illustrates that a TCS can be designed to have similar effects to a road pricing scheme. We also demonstrate that a TCS could bring emission changes arising from changes in VMT.

This article discusses development of optimal solutions for monopsony in the labour market for the long run (when labour and capital are both flexible). It is shown that binding minimum wages up to a certain degree pushes the monopsonists to choose a high capital intensity of production, just as high as or even higher than that chosen when there is no regulation for minimum wages. Thereby, we demonstrate the existence of re-switching effects in the tradition of Piero Sraffa. The second part of the paper recalculates and analyzes earlier results by making use of the rather general constant elasticity of substitution production function. Based on a numerical solution for optimal monopsony under different regimes (no minimum wage, minimum wages of different values, etc.), we formulate a two-period game between the government and the monopsonistic firm (‘minimum wage game’). Finally, we analyze the relationship between the elasticity of substitution on the one hand and likely levels of employment on the other hand, after introduction of minimum wages.

Analytical general equilibrium (AGE) models are important tools that economists use to answer questions about theory and policy. When a production function has three or more inputs, the traditional modeling technique employs Allen elasticities of substitution to represent general functional forms. This paper builds an analytical general equilibrium model using the Morishima elasticity of substitution (MES). Specifically, an existing model using Allen elasticities is reformulated to employ the MES and the new, closed-form solutions are interpreted with additional insights from the reformulation. Importantly, the special case of constant elasticity of substitution (CES) production follows directly when using Morishima elasticities, but not Allen elasticities. This paper also provides a general technique for switching from Allen to Morishima elasticities in any existing AGE model and demonstrates a one-to-one numerical equivalence regardless of the elasticity measure employed. Replicating prior results, plausible parameter values are applied to the reformulated model to analyze the source-side, distributional effects of a pollution tax and highlight how the Allen and Morishima elasticities differ.

Feature matching is very important in image stitching. RANSAC algorithm is a representative algorithm for feature matching. However, RANSAC still has many shortcomings such as a large number of iterations, a large computational complexity and cannot completely eliminate mismatches. To address above problem, in this paper, we propose a novel method termed constant elasticity of substitution function based RANSAC (CES-RANSAC) for image stitching. Specifically, CES-RANSAC improves the RANSAC algorithm by constructing a utility function, optimizing the boundary of the utility function, calculating Cobb-Douglas coefficients. It also introduces Lindahl equilibrium to derive the return value t to help eliminate mismatches. Experiments show that compared with the traditional RANSAC algorithm, CES-RANSAC has improved matching accuracy and increased computational efficiency, which further improves the efficiency of the image matching algorithm.

In the analysis of the economic growth factors, people often use the CES (constant elasticity of substitution) production function model to calculate the contribution rate of influencing factors to economic growth. However, the traditional CES production function model does not consider the period characteristic of technological progress on economic growth, so this paper puts forward a modified CES production function model. On the parameter estimation of the model, this paper presents an improved PSO (particle swarm optimization) algorithm with high precision and fast convergence. Using the modified CES production function model, this paper provides a scientific method to calculate the contribution rates of all factors influencing the economic growth. Finally, this paper performs the empirical analysis of the contribution rates of all factors influencing China’s economic growth.

This paper examines optimal monetary policy in a new Keynesian model with sectoral inflation persistence. It focuses on the welfare differential between timeless perspective (TP) and a purely discretionary monetary policy. Sectoral inflation persistence renders the central bank’s optimization problem more complicated under both cases of constant elasticity of substitution consumption index and generalized rule-of-thumb price setting. We find that there are substantial gains from employing a TP policy. This paper addresses the fact that this gain is robust with any changes in key structural parameters.

The price evolutions of goods exchange in multi-agent market are investigated by employing the kinetic theory. Assume that a closed market consists of two groups ( A and B ) of agents, who have the same preferences for goods. The constant elasticity of substitution (CES) utility function which contains Cobb–Douglas utility function and Leontief utility function, is used to describe the agent’s preferences. A system of linear Boltzmann type equation is given to describe the probability distributions of goods for agents of the two groups, in which the agents are allowed to adopt certain trading strategies to maximize their utility and improve their wealth conditions. We assume that agents in group A put all their goods into the market for maximum utility, while agents in group B aim to acquire maximal utility from goods exchange by suitably selecting the percentage of goods which are exchanged. The effects of different trading strategies on commodity price and wealth distribution are discussed. The results show that the trading strategies of agents in group B have effectively improved their wealth status under certain assumptions. Also, a general system of nonlinear Boltzmann equation for the probability distributions of goods is given to describe the pricing issues of goods exchange for agents. The numerical experiments of nonlinear Boltzmann equations demonstrate how the trading strategies and preferences of agents modify the price of goods.

We characterize intertemporal utility functions over heterogeneous goods that feature (i) a constant elasticity of substitution between goods at each point in time and (ii) a constant intertemporal elasticity of substitution for at least one of the goods. We find that a standard, stationary intertemporal utility function is consistent with these two properties if and only if it either is of the intertemporal constant elasticity of substitution (ICES) form, that is, if all elasticities of substitution are identical, or if the instantaneous utility function is Cobb–Douglas. We also characterize the families of stationary intertemporal utility functions that feature either (i) or (ii), but not the respective other property.

This research aims to estimate production functions through which production relations, possibilities for production elements substitution, measurement of its substitution elasticity, and efficiency and distribution coefficients can be analyzed. This would be done through estimation of constant elasticity of substitution production function for agricultural companies in Iraq depending on data from Iraqi Stock Exchange reports of 2005-2016. The researcher had used panel data model and estimated its three models: the Pooled Regression Model (PRM), the Fixed Effect Model (FEM) and the Random Effect Model (REM). A comparison was made for theses three models using F, LM, Husman tests. Tests show that Fixed Effect Model (FEM) is the best estimated one and depended as the explanation of the constant elasticity of substitution production function. The results of this function referred that a 1% increase in capital stock and labor would increase the agriculture production of the agricultural companies with 0.73 and 0.48 % respectively. The capital stock helps in using the production technology. Also, there were no indications that the production technology effects on production value (i.e there is no increasing in efficiency value with the increasing of capital stock; note that the timeline of the study was 12 years in which supposed to show the applied production technology used by the agricultural companies and if it happened, it would be of no important. The elasticity substitution was 10, which is high and indicates that there are other substitutions available to the companies. The researcher recommends to put the scientific resources management, the changing of production and competence, the information technology, and the market changes into consideration so as to have a great competent.

In analyses of economic growth factors, people generally use the CES (Constant Elasticity of Substitution) production function model to calculate the contribution rates of the factors that influence economic growth. However, the traditional CES function model that is built directly from economic data often shows apparent errors in parameter estimation due to data fluctuations. Such a model also may cause a negative calculation of the contribution rates of economic growth factors, or it may create abnormal fluctuations for some periods, and thus it fails to meet economic growth laws. In this paper, we propose a grey CES production function that can eliminate the random fluctuations of data and make the estimated parameters more reasonable, and this model can reflect the relationship between inputs and outputs more accurately. With regard to model application, the paper puts forward a scientific calculation method to avoid the calculation deviations caused by the substitution of difference equation for a differential equation with Solow’s formula. With the grey two-level nested CES production function model and the calculation method proposed, the paper makes an empirical analysis of the contribution rates of factors that influence China’s economic growth.

The ease with which firms can substitute away from energy to other inputs is an important determining factor in the costs of climate change mitigation policies. Climate policy simulation models usually represent this substitutability by using the Constant Elasticity of Substitution (CES) function with parameter values often taken from econometric studies. Hence, the accuracy of the estimated substitution parameters has a strong influence on the validity of the climate policy simulation. In this article, we attempt to replicate the results presented in a widely cited article in this field: Kemfert (1998) (‘Estimated substitution elasticities of a nested CES production function approach for Germany’, Energy Economics, 20, 249–264). We first use the data and software reported in that article and compare our results with those reported in the original study. We then test the same data and a new, more recent, data set on German industrial data with an improved econometric approach. Despite applying various approaches and modifications, we are not able to replicate the results in Kemfert (1998). We furthermore conclude that the data sets that are typically used to estimate nested CES functions often have too few observations and too little independent variation of the explanatory variables to obtain reliable estimates when using a direct non-linear approach. The ease with which firms can substitute away from energy to other inputs is an important determining factor in the costs of climate change mitigation policies. Climate policy simulation models usually represent this substitutability by using the Constant Elasticity of Substitution (CES) function with parameter values often taken from econometric studies. Hence, the accuracy of the estimated substitution parameters has a strong influence on the validity of the climate policy simulation. In this article, we attempt to replicate the results presented in a widely cited article in this field: Kemfert (1998) (‘Estimated substitution elasticities of a nested CES production function approach for Germany’, Energy Economics, 20, 249–264). We first use the data and software reported in that article and compare our results with those reported in the original study. We then test the same data and a new, more recent, data set on German industrial data with an improved econometric approach. Despite applying various approaches and modifications, we are not able to replicate the results in Kemfert (1998). We furthermore conclude that the data sets that are typically used to estimate nested CES functions often have too few observations and too little independent variation of the explanatory variables to obtain reliable estimates when using a direct non-linear approach.

The purpose of this discourse is to describe the estimation methods of COBB-DOUGLAS production functional model thrash cost function and with multiplicative and additive errors. Nonlinear regression models have been a subject of an intensive investigation in select years. It is no exaggeration to say that in Econometric analysis, the COBB-DOUGLAS and constant Elasticity of substitution (CES) functions are the most frequently used non-linear type of special functions. Mohammad Zakir Hussain et al, in 2010, in their research article discussed the use of Cobb-Douglas production model on some selected manufacturing industries. Md.Moyazzem Hossain et al in 2015, in their research paper estimated the parameters of Cobb- Douglas production function with additive errors and multiplicative errors for some selected manufacturing industries and suggested the most suitable Cobb-Douglas production function to forecast the production process for some selected manufacturing industries for developing countries. Besides they investigated the efficiency of both capital and labor elasticity of the two mentioned form of Cobb-Douglas production function. In 1975, DE-Min Vu in his research paper derived the exact distribution of the indirect least squares estimators of the coefficients of the Cobb-Douglas production function within the content of a stochastic production model of Marshak-Andrews type. In 2017, RVSSN Rao et al, in their research paper, presented various estimation methods for estimating parameters of Cobb-Douglas production functional model.

The constancy of the elasticity of factor substitution (σ) makes its role as a driver of the labor income share exogenous. The constant elasticity of substitution (CES) production function has predominantly been used to support this causal relationship. We argue that (i) capital-labor ratio determines the value of σ, and (ii) both capital-labor ratio and σ vary over time. We use a variable elasticity of substitution (VES) production framework that allows both labor income share and σ to change over time. Statistically significant empirical support is provided using the Japanese industrial productivity data. This suggests that the CES model may not be an ideal choice to examine the factor income share dynamics.

This paper provides the first comprehensive review of the empirical and theoretical literature on the determinants of the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor. Our focus is on the two‐input constant elasticity of substitution (CES) production function. We start by presenting four concise observations that summarize the empirical literature on the estimation of . Motivated by these observations, the main part of this survey then focuses on potential determinants of capital–labor substitution. We first review several approaches to the microfoundation of production functions where the elasticity of substitution (EOS) is treated as a purely technological parameter. Second, we outline the construction of an aggregate elasticity of substitution (AES) in a multi‐sectoral framework and investigate its dependence on underlying intra‐ and inter‐sectoral substitution. Third, we discuss the influence of the institutional framework on the extent of factor substitution. Overall, this survey highlights that the effective elasticity of substitution (EES), which is typically estimated in empirical studies, is generally not an immutable deep parameter but depends on a multitude of technological, non‐technological, and institutional determinants. Based on these insights, the final section identifies a number of potential empirical and theoretical avenues for future research.

In the decades to come, seawater desalination is expected to be an important source of potable water in water-stressed countries bordering oceans and seas, in particular in regions with fast population growth where further decline of natural freshwater availability is expected due to climate change. Israel, being part of the “thirsty Middle East region”, faces natural water scarcity that was exacerbated by the five-year drought started at 2013. This has led to an ever-growing reliance on alternative water sources, where seawater desalination has been the main source for addressing the shortages. Desalination plants currently provide about a quarter of the potable water supply with plans to expand the desalination capacity. In this chapter, I assess the economic value of seawater desalination which increases the water supply and diminishes the effects of natural freshwater shortages. The analysis employs the Israeli Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model—IGEM, which estimates the benefit of desalination gained by reducing water shortages that cause an economic loss with impact on the entire Israeli economy. IGEM assesses the impact of water shortages on key economic indicators, where the shortage values are equivalent to the amounts of desalinated seawater—current and planned. The different qualities characterizing the five water types, which account for constraints associated with crop salinity-tolerance and food-safety regulations, are reflected in the model by the constant elasticity of substitution (CES) rates between different irrigation water types. The results reveal that the value of desalinated seawater due to its role in diminishing potable water shortages is about $4 per m3—much higher than its direct cost.

As global climate warms, the occurrence frequency and loss of natural disaster are both increasing, posing a great threat to the sustainable development of human society. One of the most important approaches of disaster management is to prevent disaster and reduce disaster loss through fiscal expenditure of government; however, the optimal proportion of expenditure for disaster prevention and mitigation has always been a difficult issue that people concern about. First, this paper, after considering the impact of disaster on human capital, established a resident-manufacturer-government decision making model which contains the probability of disaster, and then solved the optimal proportion of government expenditure for disaster prevention and reduction as well as the expected economic growth rates under different conditions. Second, through numerical simulation method, this paper studied the impacts of such factors as coefficient of risk aversion and elasticity coefficient of substitution on the optimal proportion of disaster prevention and reduction expenditure. Third, through constant elasticity of substitution (CES) production function and ridge regression method, this paper verified the applicability of the proposed model with the data of the expenditures for disaster prevention and mitigation of Hunan Province in 2014. Finally, this paper summarized the research results and put forward corresponding suggestions on policy. The theoretical model proposed in this paper enriches the related researches of disaster economics, and the conclusions of empirical analysis can provide government departments with useful reference for the practice of disaster prevention and mitigation.

A fundamental assumption of the input-output (IO) model is a fixed relationship between interindustry flows. In the price version of the model, the assumption of fixed-coefficients prevents the optimal mix of inputs being adjusted when relative prices change. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the role of energy import prices in the IO price model without the usual non-substitution technology inherent to the input-output structure. The analysis includes alternative substitution possibilities for the elements that comprise the sectoral costs, which are empirically implemented from an IO dataset. The various substitution scenarios are defined by three different cost structures: the Leontief, Cobb-Douglas and Constant Elasticity of Substitution (CES) functions. The empirical application to the Catalan economy illustrates the relevance of the flexibility option used for explaining the quantitative influence of energy import prices on domestic prices. Adapting the traditional input-output model to include factor substitution makes it possible to overcome the rigidity in transmitting price impacts, and illustrates a range of possible effects.

It is demonstrated that for certain markets where traders have constant elasticity of substitution utility (CES) functions, the existence of a price equilibrium can be determined in polynomial time. It is also shown that for a certain range of elasticity of substitution where the CES market does not satisfy gross subsitutability that price equilibira can be computed in polynomial time. It is also shown that for markets satisfying gross substitutability, equilibria can be computed in polynomial time even if the excess demand is a correspondence. On the experimental side, equilibrium computation algorithms from computer science without running time guarantees are shown to be competitive with software packages used in applied microeconomics. Simulations also lend support to the Nash equilibrium solution concept by showing that agents employing heuristics in a restricted form of Texas Holdem converge to an approximate equilibrium. Monte Carlo simulations also indicate the long run preponderance of skill over chance in Holdem tournaments. Abstract Approved: Thesis SupervisorApproved: Thesis Supervisor Title and Department

This paper reviews the evidence on the importance of human capital for macro-economic development. Through the lens of a simple aggregate production function, human capital might increase output per capita by directly entering in the production process, incentivising the accumulation of complementary inputs and facilitating the adoption of new technologies. The paper discusses the advantages and limitations of three methodological approaches that have been used to evaluate the importance of these channels: cross-country regressions, development accounting and quantitative models. The key findings in the literature are reviewed, and some of them are replicated using updated data. The bulk of the evidence suggests that human capital is an important determinant of cross-country income gaps, especially when its measurement is broadened to go beyond simple proxies of educational attainment. The paper concludes by highlighting promising avenues for future work.

Is the variation in bilateral trade flows across countries primarily due to differences in the number of exporting firms (the extensive margin) or in the average size of an exporter (the intensive margin)? And how does this affect the estimation and quantitative implications of the Melitz (2003) trade model? The benchmark Melitz model with Pareto-distributed firm productivity and fixed costs of exporting, predicts that, conditional on the fixed costs of exporting, all variation in exports across trading partners should occur on the extensive margin. This paper subjects this theoretical prediction to a reality check drawing upon the World Bank's Exporter Dynamics Database (EDD) which has firm-level exports from 50 developing countries to all destinations. Around 50 percent of the variation in exports across trading partners is shown to be along the intensive margin, contradicting the benchmark Melitz-Pareto model. The paper finds that moving from a Pareto to a lognormal distribution of firm productivity allows the Melitz model to successfully match the role of the intensive margin evident in the EDD. The paper then studies the implications of our findings for quantitative trade theory. Using likelihood methods and the EDD, a generalized Melitz model with a joint lognormal distribution for firm productivity, fixed costs and demand shifters is estimated, and exact hat algebra is used to quantify the counterfactual effects of a decline in trade costs on trade flows and welfare in the estimated model. Finally, these effects are compared to those that would be predicted by the Melitz-Pareto model, with the Pareto shape parameter chosen to match the average trade elasticity implied by the estimated Melitz-lognormal model. The paper shows that the effects on welfare turn out to be quite close to those in the standard Melitz-Pareto model even though the effects on trade flows remain different.

The question of appropriate factor proportions and concern for the low absorption of labor in LDC manufacturing have made these issues important areas for research and policy in the developing countries. This is especially so in Malaysia since unemployment increased from a rate of 3 percent in 1970 to 8.7 percent in 1987, despite large investments within this period;In this study, econometric analysis of capital-labor substitutability is conducted for the Malaysian manufacturing sector for the period 1963-1984. Estimates of the elasticity of substitution are computed using the Constant Elasticity of Substitution (CES) production function approach, the translog cost approach and the CES-translog cost approach. Comparisons of alternative estimates of the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor are also made;The statistical analysis shows that most of the Malaysian industries at the 5-digit industrial classification level exhibit relatively low elasticities of substitution between capital and labor. This provides a clearer understanding of the relatively low labor absorption in the Malaysian manufacturing sector. Other factors which may be responsible for the choice of inappropriate factor proportions including biases in government policy as well as private decisions by firms are also discussed.

Intrinsically nonlinear models are models that cannot be made linear irrespective of the linearization method employed. Statisticians are often interested in estimating the parameters of nonlinear models but are faced with great difficulties since some nonlinear models cannot be solved analytically however, researchers have developed a way out of this difficulty using the Gauss-Newton Method via Kmenta approximation. This paper made use of classical and Bayesian approaches to estimate the Constant Elasticity of Substitution (CES) production function. The Metropoliswithin Gibbs Algorithm was used to carry out the analysis as shown in the empirical illustrations and the result showed that the Numerical Standard Error (NSE) is minimal while the posterior estimates converged to the region of the true values making the Bayesian approach more preferred.Keywords: Intrinsically nonlinear model, Gauss-Newton Method, CES production function, Numerical Standard Error, Metropolis-within Gibbs Algorithm.

This study derives conditions for existence of a positive sustainable consumption in an economy with an essential exhaustible resource. It does so by approximating technology with a variable elasticity of substitution production function, instead of the constant elasticity of substitution specification widely assumed in previous studies. This approach permits examination of the robustness of results previously derived in the literature to key technological assumptions. It also generates new insights regarding the role of substitutability and technical progress on existence. We find that a capital-resource elasticity of substitution greater than one is sufficient for existence even when the resource is strictly essential; a situation precluded by constant elasticity of substitution specifications. Under an elasticity of substitution lower than one, existence can still be attained (in contrast to the constant elasticity of substitution case) but only through capital-augmenting technical progress. Hicks-neutral technical progress is neither necessary nor sufficient for existence. A sufficiently high resource-augmenting technical progress thwarts existence of a positive sustainable consumption.

This paper presents the first year results of a three-year study that was designed to measure the impact of time-of-use rates in the Canadian province of Ontario. Unlike prior studies, which have analyzed such impacts in an experimental setting featuring the randomized allocation of customers to treatment and control groups, this study deals with a situation where the deployment of time-of-use rates was not experimental in nature. It was part of a full-scale program. By carefully drawing samples across four local distribution companies, we were able to interpret the study as a natural experiment and construct control groups and treatment groups. We used the Addilog model of consumer demand to estimate elasticities of substitution between peak, mid-peak and off-peak periods. The Addilog model includes as a special case the constant elasticity of substitution model that has been widely used in the literature on customer response to time-of-use rates. The estimated elasticities are well behaved and consistent with those found in the literature.

This paper assesses how structural transformation is affected by sectoral differences in labor-augmenting technological progress, capital intensity, and substitutability between capital and labor. We estimate CES production functions for agriculture, manufacturing, and services on postwar US data and compare them with Cobb--Douglas production functions with different and with equal capital shares. We find that sectoral differences in labor-augmenting technological progress are the dominant force behind changes in sectoral labor and in relative prices. As a result, Cobb--Douglas production functions with equal capital shares (which by construction abstract from differences in capital intensity and the elasticity of substitution) capture the main economic forces on the technology side behind postwar US structural transformation.

In exploring representative databases, a primary issue has been finding accurate models of user preferences. Given this, our work generalizes the method of regret minimization as proposed by Nanongkai et al. to include nonlinear utility functions. Regret minimization is an approach for selecting k representative points from a database such that every user's ideal point in the entire database is similar to one of the k points. This approach combines benefits of the methods top- k and skyline; it controls the size of the output but does not require knowledge of users' preferences. Prior work with k -regret queries assumes users' preferences to be modeled by linear utility functions. In this paper, we derive upper and lower bounds for nonlinear utility functions, as these functions can better fit occurrences such as diminishing marginal returns, propensity for risk, and substitutability of preferences. To model these phenomena, we analyze a broad subset of convex, concave, and constant elasticity of substitution functions. We also run simulations on real and synthetic data to prove the efficacy of our bounds in practice.

In standard production models, wage volatility is far too high, and equity volatility is far too low. A simple modification–sticky wages because of infrequent resetting together with a constant elasticity of substitution (CES) production function leads to both smoother wages and higher equity volatility. Further, the model produces several other hard-to-explain features of financial data: high Sharpe ratios, low and smooth interest rates, time-varying equity volatility and premium, a value premium, and a downward-sloping equity term structure. Procyclical, volatile wages are a hedge for firms in standard models; smoother wages act like operating leverage, making profits and dividends riskier.

Staffing decisions are crucial for retailers since staffing levels affect store performance and labor-related expenses constitute one of the largest components of retailers’ operating costs. With the goal of improving staffing decisions and store performance, we develop a labor-planning framework using proprietary data from an apparel retail chain. First, we propose a sales response function based on labor adequacy (the labor to traffic ratio) that exhibits variable elasticity of substitution between traffic and labor. When compared to a frequently used function with constant elasticity of substitution, our proposed function exploits information content from data more effectively and better predicts sales under extreme labor/traffic conditions. We use the validated sales response function to develop a data-driven staffing heuristic that incorporates the prediction loss function and uses past traffic to predict optimal labor. In counterfactual experimentation, we show that profits achieved by our heuristic are within 0.5% of the optimal (attainable if perfect traffic information was available) under stable traffic conditions, and within 2.5% of the optimal under extreme traffic variability. We conclude by discussing implications of our findings for researchers and practitioners.

This article studies an economy with both centralized and decentralized monetary exchanges under search frictions. A degenerate asset distribution is featured under a broad class of preferences including, for example, constant return to scale, constant elasticity of substitution, CARA and others from a range of macroeconomic literatures. Some novel applications impossible under quasi-linear preferences, for example endogenous growth, are illustrated under this class of preferences. This article finds that the welfare cost and growth loss of inflation can be much higher in these applications than previous estimates.

This study tests the extensive growth hypothesis, which would attribute the Soviet economic slowdown to low elasticity of substitution and over-investment rather than deteriorating productivity growth. To circumvent the low availability of data, widely applicable new methods for estimating productivity and elasticity of substitution were developed based on the normalized constant elasticity of substitution (CES) production function. One is an extended version of the Solow residual calculation, and the other is a direct estimation of the time-varying parameter normalized CES production function. The application of the methods to the Soviet data showed a decreasing trend in productivity growth and a low elasticity of substitution of approximately 0.25. The results neither reject nor support the extensive growth hypothesis because of uncertainty in the interpretation of the low elasticity of substitution. The results suggest that it is reasonable to assert that both deteriorating productivity growth and low ...

This paper investigates the stability properties of the Goodwin growth cycle model with the Bhaduri–Marglin accumulation function, when a constant elasticity of substitution production function is considered. It found that the substitution possibilities between the ‘factors’ of production simplify the local dynamic behaviour of the system.

Multisector growth (MSG) models are dynamic versions of computable general equilibrium (CGE) models. Non-homothetic preference (utility) functions are required for the evolution of factor allocations and industrial structures in accordance with consumption expenditure patterns implied by the non-unitary income elasticities observed in all budget data since Engel in the 1850s. But comparative static general equilibrium solutions and particularly solving the dynamics of MSG models require explicit spcifications of all demand and cost (price) functions. On the demand side, the constant differences of elasticity of substitution (CDES) on-homothetic indirect utility functions and Roy's identity provide the explicit Marshallian demand functions and budget shares. Sectorial constant elasticity of substitution (CES) cost functions and Shephard's lemma provide the explicit relative commodity price functions and the sectorial cost shares and capital-labor ratios. Walrasian equilibria are given by one equation and the multisector dynamics by three differential equations. Benchmark solutions are given for three cost regimes of a 10-sector MSG model. History patterns of indstrial/allocational evolutions are recognized.

We estimate the determinants of capital intensity in Japan and the US, characterized by striking different paths. We augment an otherwise standard Constant Elasticity of Substitution (CES) model with demand-side considerations, which we find especially relevant in the US. In this augmented setting, the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor is placed between 0.74 and 0.90 in Japan, and around 0.30 in the US. We also find evidence of biased technical change, which is capital-saving in Japan but labor-saving in the US. These differences help us explain the diverse experience in the capital deepening process of these economies, and lead us to conclude that demand-side drivers, quite relevant in the US, may also be relevant to account for different growth experiences. A close look at the nature of technological change is also needed before designing one-size-fits-all industrial, economic growth, and/or labor market policies.

The estimation of production functions for wireless communications markets presents particular challenges including the lumpy nature of spectrum use, and the presence of significant upfront investment. In this paper a systematic study of production functions for wireless markets is undertaken, using data from India. The efficacy of two major functional forms, the Cobb Douglas and the translog functions, are compared by benchmarking the values of spectrum they yield against the values generated by the intuitive but data-intensive cash flow method, and the prices revealed in two auctions. The comparisons allow us to conclude that factoring the lumpy nature of spectrum use by considering 'effective spectrum' data rather than raw spectrum data, and relaxing the assumption of constant elasticity of substitution are useful in obtaining accurate estimates of spectrum value. Use of production functions to estimate the value of spectrum.Data from Indian telecommunications market.Benchmarked to cash flow method and to prices from two auctions.Assumption of constant elasticity of substitution is restrictive.Heterogeneous usage of a spectrum block needs to be factored into the analysis.

A linear expenditure system (LES) is a system of equations describing demand in terms of an expenditure equation that is a linear function of income and prices. In spatial economics, it can represent preferences across locations, which allows differences among these locations to be accounted for. A basic theoretical foundation can be established by linking a LES to a production function (e.g., Cobb–Douglas, constant elasticity of substitution) and a utility function (e.g., Stone–Geary), one assuming that average propensities to spend vary systematically with income level due to minimum subsistence requirements. One spatial econometric issue concerns the role spatial autocorrelation plays in identification, specification, and estimation of LES parameters.

Vietnamese rice production has achieved remarkable success over the last couple of decades. This is due to land and market reforms, known as ‘Doi Moi’. There were noticeable changes in policies, such as land and production systems, which were transformed from a collective to an individual contract system in the 1980s. Vietnam made progress in rice production through the legalisation of the privatisation of farm properties and a huge investment in irrigation systems. The country not only ensured its domestic demand, but also started exporting rice and gradually became the second largest exporter in the world. An estimate of the Constant Elasticity of Substitution function (CES) for Vietnam’s rice production is essential for the government to design effective policy on agricultural production. This study makes the first attempt to estimate the nested CES model for Vietnamese rice production in 2012. The paper finds that the elasticity of substitution of Vietnam’s nested CES model lies between 0.44 and 0.46. The results indicate the weak substitutability between land and the capital-labour composite in the nested CES model. This also suggests that it is impossible to take labour as the substitutable factor for land and capital.

The constant elasticity of substitution (CES) function is an important function that is widely used in both theoretical analysis and applied economics. We propose a systematic framework to estimate the deep nested CES function using the nonlinear least squares (NLS) method. This method fills the gap between current empirical studies and large-scale applied economic models such as computable general equilibrium (CGE) models. We estimate the elasticities of substitution at both the regional and sectoral levels using this framework. The results indicate that some elasticities of substitution are larger than those in the existing literature. In addition, our results emphasize the heterogeneity of the elasticities of substitution across regions and sectors during application.