Analysis of the Returns to Scale, Elasticities of Substitution and Behavior of Shipping (General Cargo) Production

Abstract

The empirical analysis of production functions can be directed at least in two different ways which may have the same results. Firstly, we may directly assume a particular and flexible production function, and then test the different restrictions stage by stage, in order to find the most suitable functional form. An alternative way would be to assume cost, profit or input conditioned demand functions, which, after satisfying the corresponding duality theorems must provide the same information as the production function. Therefore, if the production integrability problem allows us to change from a cost function – for instance – to a production function, the technology can be perfectly detected from such a cost function. In this study, I will use the former method in which a flexible functional form such as the logarithmic transcendental or translog is directly assumed, which allows us to execute different parametrical tests of the various properties of the production technology. This choice requires information about the amount of output and of productive input. Some interesting results can be obtained from this function, such as the input elasticities of substitution, the returns to scale of the production function, the marginal products of inputs, the output elasticities and different economic hypotheses.