TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE AND PRODUCTIVITY ANALYSIS IN NEBRASKA

Authors

Dereje B. Megeressa, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Date of this Version

2011

Comments

Poster prepared for presentation at the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association 2010 AAEA, CAES, & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, Denver, Colorado, July 25-27, 2010; Copyright © 2010 by Megeressa

Abstract

Productivity growth has been an important source of US economic growth throughout the century

The years since 1940 have been an even faster growth in agricultural productivity (Ball, et.al. 1998; Tokgöz, 2002).

Several factors have been identified as the most important sources of productivity change in US agriculture.

Chandler (1962) attributes over 75 percent of the growth in productivity to technological factors in the post war years.

In Nebraska, several productivity studies conducted that include (Perrin et al, 2001; ball et al, 2001; and Palestina et al(2009).

None of the studies disaggregate land into poor and good lands and measures their relationships.

As producers respond to higher crop prices, marginal/poor lands will be converted into cropland.

To be able to estimate the indirect effect on land use, one needs to know own and cross price elasticities for the different land types.