Effects of Changes in U.S. Agricultural Production on Demand for Farm Inputs

The economic concept of constant returns to scale (CRS) may be too restrictive to give an accurate description of the agricultural sector. CRS assumes that a change in the level of agricultural production yields an equivalent change in the level of all inputs (such as farm machinery, labor, energy, land). The model used here, however, demonstrates that demand varies more for some farm inputs than others with changes in farm output, input prices, and technology, and that this effect can he calculated. The model uses a decomposition technique to show the effects of each of those changes individually on farm inputs.