Argentine agricultural policy in a multiple-input, multiple-output framework

This study shows that government interventions in Argentine agriculrure substantially reduced the growth rate of output 1440-80. A multiple product, multiple input, aggregate translog profit function is estimated. Supply elasticity estimates range from zero for l~nseed to 1.6 for sorghum. Estlrnates of intervention wedges together with the estimated structure imply that export taxes. import restrictions, and domestic taxes each in isolation could have reduced aggregate output by as much as 25%-30%. These and other interventions increased beef as a share of outputs and increased the cost shares of purchased inputs and labor at the expense of capital inputs. K q words: agricultural prduct~on, agricultural structure, Argentina. Argentine agricultural output grew at a rate of about 1.4 % per year between 1940 and 1972 (Cavallo and Mundlak, p. 13), which is a very sluggish growth rate, given earlier rates of 1.8% for 1908-20 and 2.246, 1920-40 (Schultz). It also is sluggish relative to growth in U.S. ag