Inputs, Outputs and Productivity Change in the Australian Sheep Industry

Measurement of total factor productivity growth and biases in technological change in Western Australian agriculture

“…In this section of the paper we draw upon the experiences of two earlier studies by Lawrence and McKay (1980) and Kingwell (1982), which have employed Tornqvist indices in analyses of productivity change in agriculture. Lawrence and McKay (1980) The data used in this study was taken from the Australian Agricultural and Grazing Industry Survey (AAGIS) conducted by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE).…”

“…The Tornqvist index (Tornqvist, 1936) can be shown to be a derivative of the homogeneous translog production function, which provides a second-order approximation to an arbitrary production function at any given point . This index has been used widely in studies of agricultural productivity in the past decade (Lawrence and McKay, 1980;Kingwell, 1982;Ball, 1985;Rayner et al, 1986;Rahuma and Veeman, 1988;Wong, 1989). A Tornqvist quantity index for the case of two quantities (X, and X,) has the following form:…”

“…Lawrence and McKay (1980) The data used in this study was taken from the Australian Agricultural and Grazing Industry Survey (AAGIS) conducted by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE). When deciding upon what data should be requested from the ABARE database, a decision had to be made regarding which enterprises in Western Australian agriculture should be included in the study.…”

“…If this is an accurate measure of productivity growth, then the performance is poor when compared with rates estimated for other countries and industries. For example, ABS (1989) estimates the rate of change in multi-factor productivity for the Australian market sector to have been 1.5% per year over the period from 1974/5 to 1987/8, while Lawrence and McKay (1980) estimate the rate of change in total factor productivity of the Australian sheep industry from 1952/3 to 1976/7 to have been 2.9% per year.…”

A Review of Three Research Programs in Quantitative Modelling in the Bureau of Agricultural Economics*

“…Monday 1981) and productivity change (e.g. Lawrence and McKay 1980) all potentially provide criteria or rules of thumb for determining rates of change or movement of resources, to be built into regional models. Similarly, the Bureau's microeconomic studies in investment behaviour (e.g .…”