2019•arXiv (Cornell University)Open access

The Cobb-Douglas production function revisited

Roman G. Smirnov, Kunpeng Wang

Abstract

Charles Cobb and Paul Douglas in 1928 used data from the US manufacturing sector for 1899-1922 to introduce what is known today as the Cobb-Douglas production function that has been widely used in economic theory for decades. We employ the R programming language to fit the formulas for the parameters of the Cobb-Douglas production function generated by the authors recently via the bi-Hamiltonian approach to the same data set utilized by Cobb and Douglas. We conclude that the formulas for the output elasticities and total factor productivity are compatible with the original 1928 data.

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Key concepts: CobB, Cobb–Douglas production function, Production (economics), Productivity, Function (biology), Mathematical economics, Set (abstract data type), Mathematics