| Econometric estimation of production functions is one of the most common methods in applied economic production analysis. These studies usually apply parametric estimation techniques, which obligate the researcher to specify the functional form of the production function. Most often, the Cobb-Douglas or the Translog production function is used. However, the specification of a functional form for the production function involves the risk of specifying a functional form that is not similar to the “true” relationship between the inputs and the output. This misspecification might result in biased estimation results—including measures that are of interest of applied economists, such as elasticities. Therefore, we propose to use nonparametric econometric... |
