Technical Change and Model Specification: U.S. Agricultural Production

Abstract

Abstract U.S. agricultural crop and livestock relationships are examined in the context of both duality and time‐series econometrics. Based on time‐series test results, cointegrated models are estimated. Traditional models generally overestimated the precision of statistical relationships and gave a considerable number of spurious results, particularly with regard to technical change. When time‐series properties of the data were addressed, there was much less evidence of bias in technical change. Model specification test results were sensitive both to the time‐series specification of the maintained model and its functional form. Preferred functional form depended on the choice criterion.