An International Comparison of Production Functions
The Coal-Fired Electricity Generating Industry
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9725509 |
|---|---|
| Authors | P E Hart, R K Chawla, Rashmi Chawla (0000-0001-9816-6831) |
| Year | 1970 |
| Volume | 37 |
| Issue | 146 |
| Pages | 164 |
| Publication date | 1970-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Economica (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-0427 • E-ISSN: 1468-0335 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2552192 |
| OpenAlex | W2015009658 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 6 |
Does the average efficiency of production in the United Kingdom tend to lag behind that in the United States? The National Institute of Social and Economic Research, in its research project on the strategic factors in economic growth, tried to answer this question and, as part of the project, Brechling and Surrey [2] compared the efficiency of the coal-fired steam-generated electricity in the two countries.2 They selected this industry for close examination because it had experienced rapid technological progress, because its output is homogeneous, and because the data available are comparatively good. They found that the average level and rate of growth of fuel productivity in the UK industry were less than in France and in the United States. The authors were careful to state, however, that technological backwardness was not the only interpretation of this result; they were aware that partial productivity measures, such as output in kilowatt-hours divided by fuel input in British thermal units, could be very misleading because the contribution of other inputs, particularly capital, is ignored. Indeed their Table 3 (in [2], p. 34) shows that the percentage increase in output in the UK 1949-63 was higher than that in France and in the US, while the percentage increase in capital, measured by generating capacity, was much lower than in France or the US. This difference could be interpreted as implying that the productivity of capital in the UK industry was rising relatively to that in France and in the US, and thus that the UK industry was technologically forward. However, there are other interpretations, because capital productivity is also a partial measure of productivity. Clearly we need a measure of productivity which reflects the simultaneous influence of all inputs and output, and a production
Agricultural economics · Backwardness · Capital (architecture) · Capital good · Coal · Economic growth · Economics · Economy · Electricity · Geography · Goods and services · Macroeconomics · Production (economics) · Productivity · Economic Growth and Productivity · Engineering · Global Energy and Sustainability Research
The Production Function and the Theory of Capital
Estimation and Identification of Cobb-Douglas Production Functions
The Production Function and Technical Change in the Steam-Power Industry
Cost Curves for Electricity Generation
Economies of Scale and Technological Change in Thermal Power Generation
Statistical Cost Analysis
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,04 |
| Citation span | 1975 - 1985 (11) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |