Production Economics

A production economist focuses on assessment, and will use an aggregate description of technology to answer such questions as: How does the firm compare to its competitors? Has the firm improved its production capabilities? A production engineer focuses on optimizing resources, and will use a detailed description of technology to answer a completely different set of questions: Which operations or plants should produce which products at what time? Should resource capacity be expanded and, if so, which resources should be acquired? Each group could benefit from the other group's perspective. This scholarly yet accessible book offers a unified, integrated point of view that bridges the gap between these two historically distinct perspectives. It includes over 125 exercises with comprehensive solutions and a mathematical appendix.

Overview.- Overview.- Microeconomic Foundations.- Production Functions.- Formal Description of Technology.- Nonparametric Models of Technology.- Cost Function.- Indirect Production Function.- Distance Functions.- Nonconvex Models of Technology.- Efficiency Measurement.- Efficiency Analysis.- The Two-Dimensional Projection.- Multi-Stage Efficiency Analysis.- Efficiency Analysis of Warehouse and Distribution Operations.- Productivity and Performance Measurement.- Index Numbers.- Productivity Measurement.- Performance Measurement.- Economic Analysis.- Engineering Models of Technology.- Index-Based Dynamic Production Functions.- Distribution-Based Dynamic Production Functions.- Dynamic Production Function Approximations.- A Stochastic Input-Output Model.- Multi-Stage, Dynamic Models of Technology.- Optimizing Labor Resources Within a Warehouse.