SOUTHERN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS DECEMBER, 1980 PRODUCTION FUNCTION, COST OF PRODUCTION, AND ASSOCIATED OPTIMALITY LINKAGES: A TEXTBOOK SUPPLEMENT

duction economics, the linkage of costs of pro- and factor price, ' respectively, it follows im-duction (expressed in terms of output) to the mediately that costs can be expressed as a production function, is poorly treated in most function of the product by solving the produc-intermediate level microtheory and production tion function for X in terms of Y (taking an economics texts. In several texts the linkage is inverse) so sketchy it is of limited pedagogical value (e.g., Gould and Ferguson; Heady; Leftwich). (3) X = g(Y) The best available treatments are those of Doll, Rhodes, and West, Buse and Bromley, and substituting into the cost equation. Thus, and Goodwin, all of which are in introductory we obtain texts. Certainly most students are not ready for abstract, analytical geometrics in a first (4) TC = C = rg(Y) course. However, many upper-division students not only do not understand the input where TC denotes cost when expressed in side- output side linkages and the resulting terms of output